Govt releases Sh2 billion for CHAN, Cranes fly off on January 1

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Government has released money to the Federation of Uganda’s Football Associations – FUFA to facilitate Uganda Cranes’ participating in the forthcoming TotalEnergies African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2022.

Earlier this month, Moses Magogo, the FUFA President used his Twitter handle @MosesMagogo to reveal that the Federation was considering withdrawing the national team from the CHAN tournament citing lack of funds.

But less than three weeks later, the Federation used its official Twitter still to announce that they had received funds from the government to facilitate the team.

“FUFA has received from the government UGX 2BN as part of arrears to assist in preparations for Uganda Cranes squad ahead of the CHAN finals. Part of the funds will also help in the settlement of arrears accrued as a result of the team’s earlier engagements,” reads part of the tweet

“I thank the Government of Uganda led by HE President, First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports Mama, the Parliament, Ministry of Finance, Minister of State for Sports Hon. Peter Ogwang, and the National Council of sports,” reads another part of the tweet but quoting FUFA President Magogo

It should however be noted that FUFA takes the lion’s share of the National sports budget. Out of the 47.8 billion Shillings, 17 billion is ring-fenced for FUFA. But in its tweet today morning, FUFA said that they have only received 4.8 billion shillings out of the 17 billion shillings.

This comes at a time when the National team has already started conducting preparations for the tournament that is slated between 13 January and 4 February 2023, in Algeria.

The squad that Head Coach Milutin Sredojevic summoned last week is currently residing at Cranes Paradise Hotel in Kisaasi where they will set off from to Tunisia on January 1, 2023 to have a pre-tournament before the final tournament in Algeria.

Uganda qualified for CHAN 2022 after seeing off Tanzania’s Taifa Stars 4-0 on aggregate in September. This will be Uganda’s sixth time to feature in the CHAn tournament after appearing in 2011, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020.

The CHAN tournament is played between Africa’s best national teams, but exclusively using players who are currently competing in domestic leagues and have qualified to compete in the current season.

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