Uganda Withdraws from World Mountain Running Nations Cup

Uganda will not participate in the inaugural World Mountain Running Nations Cup owing to financial constraints, the Uganda Athletics Federation- UAF has confirmed. UAF becomes the latest sporting body in the country to expose funding challenges.

The athletics Federation had earlier expressed interest in taking part in the championship. The UAF publicity secretary Namayo Mawerere has confirmed the team’s withdrawal from the competition even after selecting a team of eight athletes that were supposed to represent the country.

“The Uganda Athletics Federation had earlier selected a national team of eight athletes (4 women/4 men) during the recent 2021 National Mountain Running Championships in Kapchorwa (Sept 25, 2021) to compete in nations 19.5km course due to be held on October 31, 2021, in Chiavenna, Italy,” Mawerere confirmed. 

According to Mawerere, Uganda has been impeccable in the previous editions of the World Mountain Running Championships from 2008-2018 winning 6 gold medals, 5 silver, 6 bronze at the men’s individual level and a gold medal in the women category respectively.  

This is however not the first sports federation in the country to experience financial challenges.  In July this year, the Uganda Women’s Basketball team, The Gazelles withdrew from the FIBA Afrobasket Zone five qualifiers in Kigali after the governing body –FUBA failed to secure funding to facilitate them.  

The National Men's basketball team, Silverbacks also faced familiar challenges in the Afrobasket finals in Rwanda.  It took the intervention of Lt General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the commander of Land Forces to plead with the Education and Sports Minister, Janet Kataha Museveni to secure funding for the team to cater for their expenses in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. 

Apparently, several sports Federations have already cried out about the low sports funding by the government, which they say doesn’t favour the development of sports in the country. The sports sub-sector receives Shillings 17.4 billion. Of this, Shillings 10billion is ring-fenced for football meaning that over 50 other sports federations share the remaining Shillings 8 billion. 

The National council of sports had earlier indicated that it needed over Shillings 196 billion to effectively fund all the associations under it. The council commands over 50 different sporting activities.