FUFA Threatens To Throw SC Villa Out Of Uganda Premier League

SC Villa will not be granted a license to participate in the Uganda Premier League 2021/22 season if they don’t hold elections for substantive leadership by Tuesday 7^th September.

That is according to a letter written to the club last week by the Uganda football governing body, Fufa. By the look of things, SC Villa does not have enough time to meet the Fufa requirements going by the deadline they were given, following their aborted elections on Saturday, August 28.

Yet, it still remains a mystery why the much-anticipated elections for a new club president between Medard Sseggona and Denis Mbidde were stopped, following a court injunction.

Brenda Nambalirwa Kawuma, the applicant for the court order explained what compelled her to go to court: “The Villa election committee did not release the voters register in the time they had promised to, which made the whole process suspicious. Without knowing the actual people and the number eligible to vote always created a possibility for fraud and vote-rigging.”

According to election guidelines that had been put out by the Villa electoral committee (VEC), the process of registering voters was to end on August 25. Then, the voters’ register would be displayed. But by August 26, the registration of voters continued, which was beyond the stipulated deadline.

In addition, Nambalirwa noted that the online registration process was not reliable. She noted that while the electoral committee had assured the club members that it would be working around the clock, to enable people to register at their convenience, instead it appeared to be working at the whims of someone.

It was on and off, and many Villa fans complained of failing to register in time because the system was on and off; oftentimes dysfunctional. This locked out many fans. Others were frustrated by the fact that even when they registered, they did not receive registration numbers, let alone voting links.

On top of that, when the voters’ register was released, some people’s names appeared twice with two registration numbers. This suggested that one person could actually vote twice, Nambalirwa said. However, Robert Kiggundu, the chairman of the VEC had assured The Observer that there was no chance someone could vote twice.