Two of Uganda’s football powerhouses, Vipers SC and SC Villa, have taken a hard stance against FUFA’s recently unveiled Uganda Premier League (UPL) reforms, branding them destructive and out of touch with the realities of the game.
In a strongly worded joint letter dated August 23 to FUFA CEO Edgar Watson, Villa’s Hajji Omar Mandela and Vipers’ Dr. Lawrence Mulindwa tore into the proposals, insisting the reforms are ill-conceived, undemocratic, and dangerous to the sport’s stability.
Between them, the pair of clubs carry immense weight, 24 league titles combined, with Villa holding a record 17 and Vipers reigning with 7. Their outright rejection directly contradicts FUFA’s earlier statement that all UPL clubs had embraced the new structure. In reality, sources indicate that 13 clubs signed off, KCCA gave conditional feedback, while Villa and Vipers flatly refused.
FUFA’s Radical Proposal
Unveiled on August 20, the reforms would drastically alter the competition format.
The 16 clubs would first play a single-leg round, then split into two groups of eight. From there, each group would play a full home-and-away league.
The top six from the first group would contest the championship, while the bottom six from the second group would fight relegation. Crucially, all points earned in earlier rounds would be wiped clean.
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Villa and Vipers’ Grievances
The Kampala giants raised a catalogue of objections.
Sporting Integrity at Risk: Resetting points, they argued, makes consistency meaningless and undermines merit. They also warned of lopsided home-and-away allocations in the one-leg opening phase.
Revenue Cuts: Under the proposed model, home clubs would pocket just 85% of gate collections in single-headers and as little as 35% in double-headers. Villa and Vipers labelled this a financial ambush on clubs that already shoulder most match-day expenses.
Legal Red Flags: A requirement for players to hold a minimum of two years on their contracts was flagged as a restriction of employment freedoms.
Data Privacy Breach: FUFA’s demand for clubs to surrender both business and sporting data was criticized as unlawful, violating the Data Protection and Privacy Act.
Commercial Suicide: The new structure, they argued, is too complicated for fans and unattractive to sponsors, potentially jeopardizing existing partnerships built around the current format.
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The Way Forward
The two heavyweights have called for an immediate suspension of the reforms, the summoning of an inclusive stakeholder dialogue, and the scrapping of both the financial and registration changes.
With Villa and Vipers refusing to budge, FUFA faces its biggest governance test yet. The tug-of-war sets the stage for a bruising stand-off between the federation and two of Uganda’s most influential clubs, one that could define the future of the UPL.
