FUFA’s decision to award Kitara FC three points and three goals after Vipers SC declined to honour the fixture is not justice; it is a hollow, cowardly performance that exposes the federation’s chronic inconsistency and administrative bankruptcy.
This ruling is not just wrong, it is rotten at the core: Vipers did not ghost the fixture. They formally wrote to FUFA to communicate that they would not honour the match, clearly stating that their decision was in protest of the newly introduced league format.
This was not indiscipline; it was a deliberate, documented act of protest against a competition structure that FUFA itself later suspended. In other words, FUFA has punished Vipers for challenging a format that FUFA eventually admitted was flawed. That alone renders this decision morally and intellectually indefensible.
You cannot suspend your own competition rules and then turn around to punish a club under those same suspended rules. That is not enforcement; that is self-contradiction elevated to policy.
FUFA is effectively saying: “We were wrong about the format, but you were wrong to say we were wrong before we admitted it.” This is the logic of a wounded ego, not of a serious football authority.
By reaching for Article 16 of the FUFA Ethics and Disciplinary Code, FUFA has chosen to hide behind the letter of the law while trampling on its spirit. Discipline is supposed to protect the integrity of the game, not to become a convenient stick for beating dissent.
If integrity truly mattered, the obvious, sensible and proportionate remedy would have been to reschedule the match once the disputed format was suspended. Instead, FUFA went for the most vindictive option available, an administrative forfeit, because it was easier to punish than to reflect.
And in doing so, FUFA has turned the league table into a joke. Kitara, who were fifth on 29 points, are suddenly elevated to 32 points and second place without breaking sweat, without kicking a ball, without competing. Three goals have been fabricated by decree. Three points have been manufactured by bureaucracy. This is not sport; this is fiction.
The Uganda Premier League is being reduced to a clerical exercise where outcomes are decided in offices rather than on the pitch.
At the same time, Vipers, top of the table on 36 points, are punished not for acting in bad faith, but for daring to challenge a flawed system. FUFA’s message is clear and chilling: obedience matters more than fairness, silence matters more than principle, and questioning authority will be met with punishment even when authority later admits it was wrong. This is governance by intimidation, not leadership by reason.
FUFA has managed the rare feat of undermining the credibility of both clubs at once, one by punishing it unjustly, the other by gifting it points it did not earn. That is a special level of administrative clumsiness.
Vipers’ Head of Legal, Alex Luganda, has already laid bare the absurdity of FUFA’s position. “We are yet to get a detailed ruling. I’ve seen the excerpt, but this is shabby. You can’t punish us under a format whose rules and competition you suspended, after us challenging it. We’ll respond formally in a statement after getting a detailed ruling from FUFA,” he said. That is not defiance; that is a calm, surgical exposure of FUFA’s contradiction.
FUFA wants the power to design flawed systems, the authority to enforce them, and the privilege to suspend them when they become inconvenient, all without facing consequences for the chaos they create.
Instead of owning their mistake and fixing the situation with a rescheduled match, they chose to protect their pride by sacrificing fairness. They have turned governance into theatre, and the league into a prop for their bruised egos.
This decision is lame, inconsistent and intellectually dishonest. It punishes protest, validates that protest by suspending the format, and then refuses to take responsibility for the mess that followed. FUFA has chosen convenience over credibility, punishment over problem-solving, and ego over equity.
