Take football to the grassroots

The miracle story of little-known West Nile-based football club, Onduparaka, should not be hushed. It offers the country big lessons in budding the country’s footballing talents. The obscure Onduparaka stunned holders SC Villa 4-3 on penalties to bundle them out of the 64-team Uganda Cup competition at Nakivubo Stadium in Kampala last weekend. That was after they held them to a 0-0 draw after 90 minutes of normal time.

Onduparaka’s achievement is no fluke. In March, Onduparaka provided the bulk of the West Nile squad that upset Uganda Cranes 1-0 in a friendly. This little miracle story speaks of the rich but untapped potential that rural Uganda can yield to feed and improve both variety and quality of our national sports teams. This is why the glimpses of success from Onduparaka should be shouted from the rooftops in order to kick upstairs many more such ambitious rural teams.

Stories of raw talent that has been tapped to challenge even at the world stage is not new. For their 1998 football World Cup tournament, Cameroon tapped little known and raw home-nurtured talent Pierre Njanka. Midfielder Njanka’s spectacular volley against Austria in the 78th minute in Toulouse, Stade Municipal, before a 36,000-capacity crowd, was one of wonder goals of the 1998 World Cup.

Njanka’s tale should endear us and Uganda’s sports authorities to listen to the counsel of Onduparaka’s youthful coach Allan Kabonge that West Nile, as much as central northern, Karamoja, western and much of eastern regions are overlooked. But given the opportunity, the youth in these regions can challenge for any honours as evidenced by the young lads of Onduparaka. They were challenged by coach Kabonge to go out and show the country what they can do; and indeed, they duly did.

Deplorably, the country’s current big football league is dominated by 14 teams from central region with only two coming from eastern region. There is no representation from West Nile, northern, and eastern regions, save for Jinja, which supplies the two teams from eastern Uganda.

The story of Onduparaka should wake up our sports authorities to excite more interest in football across the country. This will help encourage more local football teams in the remote reaches of the country to join the big league and challenge the giants. Nonetheless, it is refreshing that among the numbers wearing Onduparaka’s colours is Shaban Muhammed, a player in the national under-20 team.
Let’s take the country’s football to the grassroots to tap more Onduparakas.