By Charles Mutebi and
Johnson Were
UCU Lady Canons has pulled out of the Africa Zone V club basketball championship slated for July 27-August 2 in Kampala.
Canons claim they cannot raise a competitive team because of international rules forbidding more than two foreign players to compete for a club.
“We have received a communication from UCU indicating that they have opted to pull out because they can not raise a competing
team,” Tom Ocamringa, the secretary of the domestic basketball governing body FUBA said.
“We shall meet with the organising committee and see whether we can convince them to reverse their decision or find a replacement before the end of this week.”
Canons have five Kenya players Hadija Shaban, Brenda Mbone, Lorraine Akinyi, Salome Oketch and Asiya Syria.
The other clubs representing Uganda are A1 Challenge and KCC Leopards in the ladies category, while Falcons, Dmark Power and
Warriors will feature in the men’s event.
Meanwhile, FUBA are grappling with the nightmare of hosting a substandard event after their request to use the Lugogo Indoor Stadium was rejected.
The federation was hoping to have Lugogo as the main venue for the event.
But they have been told by communications giants MTN through the National Council of Sports that renovations on the stadium must start next week.
“I know this is going to seriously affect the tournament,” acknowledged a despondent FUBA president Ambrose Tashobya.
Tashobya has already received a letter from the NCS informing him that the federation’s request had been turned down.
“I know our fans would have loved to be in the stadium but there is nothing much we can do now,” Tashobya added.
At the same time, the council general secretary Jasper Aligawesa, said yesterday that plans for the event have to move forward.
“We need to move ahead, we don’t want to be like villagers,” Aligawesa said “We were supposed to have this in January or March, but the badminton federation requested to use it for a tournament.
“Then the volleyball people ... So if we don’t have it now, we won’t be able to do so soon because the badminton body has a very big tournament next February.”
Aligawesa further explained that all sports federations were informed last year that Lugogo would be unavailable in 2009 as the MTN-sponsored face-lift comes into effect.
Nevertheless, Tashobya had tried to convince MTN to delay the work until the end of the event, aware of the implications of hosting all the games at YMCA and Makerere University courts.
This means YMCA will become the main tournament venue but it, along with the Makerere venue, is vulnerable to rain interruptions
as it is an outdoor court.
Neither venue is as attractive as Lugogo for the fans, which means FUBA will raise far less in gate-collections -a key loss for the federation.
MTN are also the sponsors of the national basketball league whose action is going