Mutyaba vows to engage Magogo in legal battle

Siggy AINE

A few weeks ago the entire country especially the footballing fraternity was shocked when ex Cranes player Mike Mutyaba was seen being brutally beaten by guards at FUFA house in Mengo.

All this fracas was as a result of Mutyaba protesting against the leadership of FUFA primarily the president Moses Magogo whom he says has dragged Ugandan football backwards with his inefficiency and incompetence.

Mutyaba got beaten and put behind bars by the nearby police though he was released the following day. During this entire period, an exodus of Cranes players started handing in their official retirement letters from the national team most notably skipper, Denis Onyango.

Now Mike Mutyaba has not stopped on demanding the resignation of the top FUFA leadership due to their corruption and inability to pay players arrears, he has gone ahead to petition the State House anti corruption unit to intervene in the matter.

In a detailed letter written with copies dispatched to the FUFA president himself, President Museveni and the minister of education and sports Janet Kataaha Museveni, Mutyaba makes a number of claims.

This letter was specifically addressing the recent list of payments FUFA released with payments made to Cranes players for a period of the past 36 months.

Mutyaba in his letter to the State House anti corruption unit dated April 20th says ‘For instance, I have never received the sum of UGX 12,950,000 as falsely represented in the impugned list.’

The ex international star’s letter goes ahead to accuse FUFA of only having paid the players the first 4 months on the list and from the 50M monthly stipend that the President had committed to the Cranes players some years back.

In the same letter Mutyaba said that the list FUFA released was just nonsensical and only to shield away criticism from themselves because they still owe players much more money than what is indicated.

Mutyaba’s letter goes ahead to talk of how the players were supposed to be paid $2,000 per player for Uganda vs Mali at Gabon 2017 Afcon, $1,000 for Uganda vs Tanzania in September 2018 and $1,500 for Congo Brazzaville vs Uganda the same very year.

He added that allowances and bonuses for participants in the qualification for Chan Morocco 2018, amounting to $1,000 per footballer are yet to be cleared.

Mutyaba’s letter has a number of other claims besides the failure to clear players’ arrears such as failing to pay teams that participate in FUFA organised tournaments.

‘I have also learnt that the winners of the Fufa Drum 2019 (Acholi Province) have never been paid their money totalling to UGX 40m yet Fufa budgeted and appropriated this money. Furthermore, whenever the players play three consecutive matches, Fufa only pays them for two matches and retains the balance.”

Mutyaba’s major reason for this letter was to call upon the anti corruption unit headed by Col Edith Nakalema to conduct a thorough and transparent audit of the institution on how it runs it’s finances as he claimed that it’s filthily corrupt.

FUFA has a reason to be worried about these developments as some players seem to be dissatisfied with how the institution is run especially in regards to payment.

This was evident through former Cranes player Hassan Wasswa who also hung up his boots in the recent weeks, ‘You think when we keep quiet, we are dumb?,” retorted Wasswa.
“When we played Congo Brazzaville away, did you pay us? Do you think if we had this money we would be fighting with you?”

FUFA hasn’t yet come out to talk about the issue of Mutyaba being beaten at it’s premises or his letter which they have received a copy of through their president.