Uganda Cranes: FUFA puts Put in Charge of National Team, Once Banned on Charges of Match Fixing
The Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) has announced the appointment of Belgian tactician, Paul Joseph Put as the new Uganda Cranes head Coach for a president of two years.
This was confirmed on Thursday morning by the Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) during a press conference addressed at FUFA House in Mengo.
Put replaces Milutin Sredojevic ‘Micho’ who was relieved of his duties following Cranes unsuccessful AFCON 2023 campaign.
The Belgian joins Uganda on a two-year employment contract and his immediate task will be to guide the Cranes past Guinea and Somalia in the 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers this month in Morocco.
This is the sixth job Put is taking in Africa after having previously coached the Gambian National team(2008–2011), Congo (2021), Guinea( 2018–2019), Kenya (2017–2018) and Burkina Faso (2012–2015).
However, with FUFA in direct fight of match fixing in Ugandan football, the coach they have appointed to take charge of the national team, Paul Put was banned by Belgian Football governing body for a period of three years over Match Fixing cases.
And according to the UK based news outlet, the Guardian, Paul accepted the ban and confirmed that Match Fixing is there in football and it can’t be fought out.
“He is one of the very few coaches to have been banned for fixing games, serving a three-year ban in Belgium that expired in 2011 after being found guilty of fixing two matches while manager of Lierse.” The Guardian reported in 2013.
“Match-fixing has always existed in football,” Put told the Guardian in a exclusive interview.
“If you look at cycling, at Lance Armstrong, it’s always him who is pointed at but everybody was taking drugs. It’s not that I’ve been doing match-fixing, not at all, but it has been declared in the media like this. I also played football and I saw a lot of things. I don’t think you can change it. It’s unfortunate but I think in every sport you have to face those things. That is reality but what can you do about that?” Put questioned.
In his words Put accepted the ban because FIFA confirmed to him that he can continue with his work
“I accepted the ban because Fifa said I could work, so I didn’t make any trouble in Belgium,” he told the Guardian.
In that same interview,Put said that they him that to fix a match you don’t need to have 12 players, even one can do it.
From there, Put joined Burkina Faso a d his reign at the team, the 67-year old led them to the second place at 2013 AFCON finals in South Africa.
Put is currently placed on a life ban by the Guinea Football Federation (Feguifoot) for allegedly breaching the institution’s code of ethics and its code of discipline in 2019, which was followed up by his sacking.
Jordan (2015–2016), USM Alger (2016–2017), Xinjiang Tianshan Leopard (2018) and Saif SC (2020–2021) are the other sides Put has managed in his long coaching career.
Profile:
2008–2011: Gambia
2012–2015: Burkina Faso
2015–2016: Jordan
2016–2017: USM Alger
2017–2018: Kenya
2018: Xinjiang Tianshan Leopard
2018–2019: Guinea
2020–2021: Saif SC
2021: Congo