Netball: What Could be the Reason Why Big Names In Uganda, On Continent Fight Babirye Kityo Leadership

In most cases, stakeholders, delegates, media and the family of any game in Uganda fight leadership because of poor service delivery, corruption or embezzlement of the discipline’s funds but with Netball this time round is not the same case.

For starters, the new leadership of Uganda Netball Federation came into office after winning the June 5th 2021 elections held at Lugogo Indoor Arena, in simple terms, the new executive is in office for less than eight months.

However, this executive under Hon. Babirye Kityo Sarah made a difference and their performance is visible and sounding on ground even when they haven’t received any quarterly release from the National Council of Sports since they came into office.

With no biasness, these are the highlights of what the new executive has achieved in the past seven months, 80% been using their own pocket money, and help from the well wishers and volunteers.

✓For the past decade and above, Uganda Netball Federation had been a tenant of a single room at National Council of Sports premises as their office but when this new executive came into power, they shifted their home to Aga Khan Building Old Kampala and the headquarter has more than eight offices with each department cared for.

✓The token the federation received as a Covid relief of 4M, they got from international body, they distributed it to She Cranes players and technical team, putting smile on the face of those girls.

✓Their first international tournament was the Male International Netball Championship held in South Africa in September last year and the boys nicknamed “THE ROCK” came back home with silver medal which rejuvenated the male’s game that went in sabbatical since 2008.

✓With no money from government, Babirye and her team managed to run three leagues concurrently, not like before when they were played from a single venue until the end of the season but this time, the teams had been moving to different parts of the nation and in fact the second division Women, it’s playoffs were held in Busia (Eastern Uganda). This time the topflight league was scheduled to run for at least six months, but was halted due to wrangles we are to mention in the following paragraphs.

✓Uganda She Cranes competing on continent is not news because even in the past they have been going but, this time Uganda engaged in two consecutive tournaments, that is pent Series to which they won and finished second in Africa Netball Championship and guess what, they moved a place in world rankings from 3rd to 2nd on continent and 7th to 6th on world, currently Uganda is int league of big six nations and received an automatic ticket to feature in July Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

✓In their manifesto while campaigning, Kityo and team Promised to take Netball to grassroots and talent identification not forgetting development, indeed they had started doing it, in December at Old Kampala Arena, they held the maiden U12 Netball Championship that attracted five teams and each of the five regions represented by one team and Central Region won the tournament.

✓The recent achievement came at the end of last month when the held the first ever Street Netball in Arua (West Nile SubRegion) and six teams took part. And at least ten players were identified and in process of getting them bursaries.

Now with these achievements in few months, then why would someone come and disturb the peace of the game? 

~ According to Babirye, when she went to South Africa for male Netball Championship last year, she discovered that there is something not going on well in Uganda Netball and that of South Africa but she kept silent while collecting evidence. 

~ The Nambia trip with She Cranes continued to disclose the secrets, for the past years, South Africa saw Uganda as a number one threat on continent so the Netball South Africa president who doubles as Africa Netball president, Cecilia Molokwane started to search for all ways to cripple Uganda not to reach SA level. The rumors had it that she convinced the previous leadership of Netball Uganda to fix matches for Uganda and south Africa.

And according to undisclosed sources, it 

was the main reason why Coach Mugerwa was sacked by UNF as the She Cranes head coach because he refused to embrace the deal.

Other sources indicate that former president UNF, Susan Anek, former She Cranes manager Jocelyn Ucanda and National Council of Sports General Secretary Dr Bernard Ogwel are among the big names in Uganda who involved in such and that’s they reason as to why NCS paid a deaf ear to Coach Mugerwa Fred when he asked for assistance.

The rumors has it the a lot of money exchange involved in this matter.

Kityo came in a surprise, they never expected that they [Anek and her team] that they will easily lose power like it happened on 5th June 2021.

Kityo seemed to be loyal towards are country and the game of Netball, so she became a hard person to deal with, the only option remained was to fight her out of office by creating unnecessary wrangles between her and her executive members, in that there be Continuous misunderstandings to create a gap for NCS in come in, disband the current executive, create a normalization Committee, bring back Anek and Ucanda to run the matters of the game.

According to different reliable sources from Babirye’s camp and that of Anek revealed that, that’s the reason as to why Ogwel quickly came into the matter, but when Anek refused to officially handle over Office to the new executive, Ogwel was silent even though he received letters asking for his intervention.

The screenshot that went viral on social media of Anek confirming to Cecilia Molokwane as the Issues of Uganda Netball are almost done and soon Babirye and her team will be history Continues to asserts that the rumors were true.

According to Babirye who is now desperately fighting for her survival and the of the game, Molokwane is using Anek and Ucanda to fight her in Uganda,  Joan Smith,the development official on continent is the deployed person to fight Babirye at international level [World Netball].

To certify this, Molokwane and team wrote to Minister of Education and Sports, First Lady, Janet Kataha Museveni describing Babirye as a leader who puts to game of Netball in dispute, that she committed crime in Nambia despite the fact that the letter had no reference number for the case Babirye committed.

With Nambia saga, Babirye revealed to media in Uganda that she was fighting for the rights of team Uganda, asserting that it was unfair for South African officials to officiate the game between Uganda and South, she wasn’t happy with the tournament [Africa Netball Championship] which was meant to be played outdoor but without communication to concerned parties, the tourney was taken indoor to favor South Africa.

Questions?

With Molokwane still in that Africa Netball top seat, will Africa grow in the game?

Is it true Molokwane frustrates whichever country that step up to develop it’s game?

Why is it that few countries from Africa do affiliate to World Netball?

When does World Netball come into matters of it’s member Associations?

Does World Netball Cares about the development and growth of African Netball? 

That’s for another day!