From offices to competition facilities, there is hardly a convincing reason why Ugandan sports federations, in their current state, should not embrace cost sharing. There is little justification, for instance, for a federation to maintain a reserved boardroom that is used only once a month or even less frequently.
Current funding levels for most federations mean that executive boards only sit when funds are available to be spent or when key calendar activities are approaching. Even when major activities arise, it is not realistic to expect executive members or secretariat staff to be engaged from 8am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday, throughout the year.
Federations receiving a government allocation of only 10 million shillings annually are effectively unable to operate in any meaningful way. They cannot afford to meet weekly or even monthly, as there is very little business to transact. Frequent meetings in such circumstances would amount to wastage of both time and the limited resources available. Operational costs such as office rent and audited accounts alone can consume the entire allocation.
The argument that these poorly funded federations lack sufficient activity to justify higher funding is a misleading narrative that has been used to justify continued underdevelopment. I once challenged a colleague in FUFA, the football governing body, to explain whether such federations would remain inactive if FUFA’s budget of 20 billion shillings were swapped with their 10 million shillings allocation.
Nevertheless, even with limited funding, if these federations pooled their resources and adopted a cost sharing model, they could generate meaningful activities and results. There are about 25 such federations. Combining their allocations would create a pool of approximately 250 million shillings. With this, they could establish a joint office and employ shared staff.
Such an arrangement would also demonstrate to government that the core challenge is not infrastructure but inadequate funding. Federations could hold joint competitions to reduce venue hire costs, share printing services, use common auditing personnel, and adopt shared procurement systems. This would significantly reduce costs while producing more visible results for the country.
Even for better funded federations such as boxing, volleyball, netball, basketball, hockey and squash, there are still clear inefficiencies. For example, many of these federations do not have dedicated boardrooms. They also do not require separately owned printers, scanners, auditors, or administrative staff. These resources can be centrally managed under a cost sharing arrangement.
Heavy duty printers, often referred to as business hubs, cost about 15 million shillings to acquire. It is difficult to justify why each federation should own such equipment individually when their printing needs are relatively low. It is unlikely that most of these federations print even 500 pages per month throughout the year. A one off investment of 15 million shillings would therefore be far more efficient than six federations each purchasing separate printers at a total cost of 90 million shillings.
At present, the only federation that may require largely independent operational departments is football, given its significantly higher funding levels and activity volume. A federation with a 20 billion shilling government allocation naturally has more year round activities, similar to football. This is also before considering additional funding from FIFA, CAF and private sponsors.
Even then, there is no clear reason why football owned facilities such as Kadiba and Njeru cannot be made available to other national teams when not in use, or under an agreed timetable. These facilities are not utilised 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are many periods when other outdoor sports national teams could also benefit from them.
Cost sharing would ultimately release more funds for core sporting needs such as competitions, equipment and training facilities. The key question is who should drive this model forward. When UUSFA attempted to introduce similar initiatives, there was resistance from various stakeholders who were uncomfortable with the principles behind the proposal.
Bodies such as the National Council of Sports and the Uganda Olympic Committee, as the main umbrella sports organisations, would be best placed to spearhead such an initiative. A clear coordinating structure is necessary for this approach to succeed, without unnecessary fear or misunderstanding.
There are already practical examples of shared systems within both NCS and UOC. If NCS can manage about 50 national sports federations with centralised staff, and the UOC can coordinate 33 federations with even fewer personnel, then federations themselves can adopt a similar model. This would continue until their activity levels are strong enough to justify separate operational structures.
The writer is a bush lawyer, former President of the Uganda Table Tennis Association (UTTA), Secretary General of the Union of Uganda Sports Federations and Associations (UUSFA), and Board Member of the Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC).
