In his Thursday segmented social media missive to the nation in response to various issues especially in regard to the COVID-19 economic impact, post-lockdown ‘new normal’ and continued shutdown of some sectors like sports, schools, cinemas, bars, night clubs and churches, plus other national issues, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni dropped a hint that sports could resume very soon.
“I welcome other positive suggestions like the idea of sports without audiences that have been tried in other countries of Europe,” President Museveni noted in one of the segment of his missive.
However, just like other sectors that were reinstated after being shut down for a while, sports too, if reinstated is expected to follow Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to curb the spread of the pandemic.
“Any activity that can be opened safely, with SOPs, will be opened. I am one of the people most interested in good economic performance. However, economic performance should never be more important than lives” President Museveni added.
Other risky sectors like public transport, arcades and the like were given a green light to resume and sports could be the next to be reinstated.
About two months ago, sports started a ‘long walk back to life’ when National Council of Sports (NCS) guided it’s 51 member federations/associations/unions on drafting SOPs to follow in the post-lockdown era.
NCS later submitted SOPs to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), Ministry of Health (MoH) and the COVID-19 National Task Force in a bid to secure a green light to reinstate play.
Some federations have even taken bold steps to engage top government officials in matters regarding sports resumption. For instance, FUFA officials recently met Prime Minister Ruhakana Rugunda to find ways of reinstating competitive play.
All federations/associations/unions have drafted and adopted SOPs to be used in the post-lockdown age and there is no doubt that time is ripe to reinstate games, especially low-risk sports.
