Nyamityobora FC President Eng. Ben Misagga has dragged the registered trustees of Federation of Uganda football associations (FUFA), FUFA Super League Limited (FSLL) and Star DTV Co. Ltd (StarTimes digital TV) to court over the Uganda premier league sponsorship deal commission.
Through Muwema and Co. Advocates and solicitors, Misagga filed the case in the High Court (Commercial division) under file Civil Suit No. 287 of 2019 seeking payment of his commission share of StarTimes-UPL 10-year sponsorship contract. Pepper has seen the court summons for the defendants to file defense, drawn under the court registrar on April 11, 2019 which partly reads: “Whereas the above named Plaintiff has instituted a suit against you upon the claim the particulars of which are set out in the copy attached hereto. You are hereby required to file a defence in the said suit within fifteen days from the date of service of summons on you in the manner prescribed under Civil Procedure Rules, as amended. Should you fail to file defence on or before the date mentioned, the Plaintiff may proceed with the suit and judgement may be given in your absence.” Misagga, through the same legal firm had earlier served FUFA with an intention to sue which the football governing body seemingly binned. According to earlier details, Misagga wants the defendants to pay him $724,000 (Shs2.68bn) as 10% commission of the overall 10-year sponsorship agreement. The former SC Villa President claims that during a meeting at Ivys hotel in Lubaga, Fufa agreed that he should find sponsors for the Fufa Big League and Uganda Super League. The commission was set to be 10% of the overall sponsorship –which was reportedly also passed by the FSL assembly (16 premier league clubs and FUFA). Misagga claims that after the meeting, he introduced Andy Wang, Executive director of StarTimes to Fufa president Moses Magogo. They negotiated a 10-year sponsorship deal worth $7,240,000 (Shs26.8bn) for the Fufa Big League and Uganda Premier League. The contract stipulates that StarTimes makes annual payments over the next 10 years and the Chinese firm has already made initial payments, but Misagga is yet to receive ‘his’ commission. His lawyers claim that their client has tried several times to receive his payment, but Fufa has supposedly feigned ignorance and ignored his calls. “I have all the correspondences over the deal both electronic and documented. Let them file defence because we have even ever sat and negotiated on the commission, only later, to be told that the money was given to UPL clubs that there was no commission agent,” Misagga noted. FSL lawyer Alex Luganda confirmed receipt of the summons but was unwilling to give more details. “As FSLL lawyer I can only confirm that we were served later last week and I received the documents. I am soon looking at them and we shall respond to the case details after studying the documents within the given 15-days time as per court summons to file defence,” noted Luganda, who is also part of FUFA Legal team. FSL runs the league through the board that employs a Uganda premier league secretariat (UPL) but FUFA, as a soccer governing body, is a special shareholder with Veto powers in the company.
