Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) President Hon. Eng. Moses Magogo has urged football referees to make good and honest decisions when making calls on the pitch so as to ensure the development of the game.
On Tuesday, Magogo held a meeting to discuss urgent matters on refereeing in Uganda. The session took place at FUFA House in Mengo and was comprising of the three FUFA Vice Presidents Justus Mugisha, Darius Mugoye and Florence Nakiwala Kiyingi, among others.
Magogo highlighted the importance of refereeing in any competition with the responsibility of the federation in developing, promoting, assessing, disciplining, and correcting the referees.
“If we fail on refereeing or seem to be failing on refereeing, it might affect the entire competition. We might get the wrong top scorer, wrong summons to the National team depending on the statistics. So, it is very important we get refereeing correctly,” Magogo said as per FUFA website.
“There are three ways a referee is judged. One is when a referee intentionally makes a mistake, the second area when they are judged is after making a mistake as a human being because we all make mistakes and the third one is when the person judging is the one making a mistake and the referee is correct,” Magogo added.
The FUFA meeting comes just days after alleged poor refereeing caused violent scenes in Arua after a contentious penalty was awarded in a game between Onduparaka FC and KCCA FC at the Green Light Stadium that forced the officials to abandon the match. Various individuals including the center referee of the day have been handed suspensions.
However, FUFA Referees Standing Committee chairperson Brian Miiro Nsubuga, Uganda Premier League Board Chairman Arinaitwe Rugyendo, FUFA CEO Edgar Watson, the Deputy CEO- Football Decolas Kiiza, and the FUFA Competitions Director Hajat Aisha Nalule also attended the Tuesday meeting.
According to Nsubuga, FUFA has a responsibility to develop, promote, appoint, asses, punish culprits where there is indiscipline and correct them where correction is needed.
According to the FUFA Deputy CEO- Football Decolas Kiiza, various meetings have been held to address an issue that needs to be responded to thus improving the product of football with particular emphasis on the Uganda Premier League.
‘We have held a series of meetings towards addressing issues that need to be responded to so as to improve the product of football with particular emphasis to the Uganda Premier League. There are many issues to address which we need to pay attention to immediately about the refereeing function and a circular will be released soon for us to be able to improve in the second round,’ noted Kiiza.
