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Former URA and SC Villa CEO, Ivan Kakembo, has come out to speak against and threatened to sue the Uganda Youth Football Association (UYFA) over the decision to controversially eliminate his academy, Uganda Youth Soccer Academy (UYSA) from the list of registered academies in Uganda as new chairman Roberts Kiwanuka sets new precedence.
According to documents we retrieved from the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), the body responsible for registering business names, companies and organisations, UYSA was registered in 2007, long before the association came into existence.
After submitting the documents for registration, UYSA was vetted by the UYFA and found to be legitimate and deserving of recognition and registration as a fully-fledged Academy that meets all the requirements to proceed with the process.
The Academy was to be registered under the Buganda region for spheres of operation/Location.
Kakembo went on as advised in the response from UYFA in the document above, and a sum of two hundred thousand shillings (200,000/=), which is required for registration and was issued with a receipt dated 7th May 2021, by the UYFA, undersigned by Shafic Kigongo, the Association CEO.
However, when the list of Academies registered by the UYFA was released, Kakembo’s UYSA had been left out – was it a case of selective elimination?
In response, Kakembo via his Facebook account termed the development as ‘Political Persecution’.
“Am disgusted that Uganda Youth Soccer Academy is omitted from the list of registered academies by the Uganda Youth Football Association after meeting all the requirements and paying all the required fees.”
“This political persecution must stop as we have an obligation of uplifting many talents and the people responsible for the torture never even bought a single football.”
But how did we get here?
According to sources close to the UYFA, the motion to denounce UYSA as a fully registered Academy was moved by the UYFA Vice-Chairman Farouk Kigongo during the Association’s AGM during which new members (academies) were to be admitted after the FUFA took a decision to deregister all the academies and reverse the registration process.
According to our sources, Kigongo’s motion not to have UYSA admitted was based on an argument that the Academy’s name needs to be revised, so as not to be mistaken for an entity owned by the UYFA because of the names that are closely related.
“This can be taken as if the academy Uganda Youth Soccer Academy is for Uganda Youth Football Association, which was seconded by the new UYFA Chairman, Kiwanuka Roberts.”
The Case
Before approving UYSA to proceed with the registration process that included payments, all due diligence was supposed to be done at this point by the UYFA secretariat and this should have not gotten to that level. However, the same entity that gave greenlight for the Academy’s registration was the same that later eliminated the UYSA from the registered Academies – Is this not a case of double standards in addition to failing to do enough checks that would have brought this to the attention of the concerned parties? Were there no guidelines that were being followed to ensure such occurrences can be avoided?
According to Ivan Kakembo, Farouk Kigongo was also part of the meeting that sat, vetted and approved his academy’s documents ahead of the process. This is the same delegate that moved a motion during the assembly not to have the UYSA as part of the listed members of the UYFA.
UYSA was founded in 2007 long before the UYFA could come into existence, later on, become a member of the FUFA. How then is UYSA expected to register as a new entity with the URSB, start operations and trading as a new entity?
In a press statement released by the UYSA Director, Ivan Kakembo, the move to eliminate his entity is ‘a politically motivated primitive diatribe which is purely’ intended to demonize youth football programs that have successfully uplifted football talents in Uganda’s Urban slums for the last 15 years.
You can read the full statement here: Press release on Academy registration with UYFA
The latest developments indicate that Ivan Kakembo through Kikomeko, Kayiir & Co. Advocates is threatening to sue the UYFA, through the mother body of the FUFA over the matter should they fail to apologise and publish a new listing that includes the UYSA as a dully registered Academy.
“in the premises, we demand that you within seven (7) working days formally apologise to our client, publish the said apology on your social media handles/platforms and publish a new list including our client as a dully registered academy,” part of the statement read.
“TAKE NOTICE that failure on your part to heed to the said demands shall constrain us to take legal action much to your detriment, colossal costs and regret.”
You can read the whole statement here: Intention to sue FUFA – Kikomeko, Kayiir & Co. Advocates
On Sunday, UYFA released a list of 37 registered academies in the Buganda Region and Uganda Youth Soccer Academy (UYSA) wasn’t included.
Last year, FUFA de-registered all academies in the country and academy owners were ordered to apply for a license in order to operate.
These licenses are classified in Classes A to D and expire after two years.
