For a club supposed to celebrate their golden anniversary this year, the governance and ownership structure at the record 17-time Uganda Premier League (UPL) champions SC Villa remains a truly thorny issue.
The club, on Tuesday, finally broke their silence after a series of queries raised by former club president Ben Misagga, regarding the club’s future at a press meeting called by the club’s trustees at the City Tyres Kamwokya Branch in Kampala.
Misagga has questioned the legality of the current Omar Mandela led executive whose four-year term expired in November.
Mandela returned to the club as president in 2021 after a previous electoral process failed with factions trading accusations of being affiliated to rival political parties.
According to Gerald Ssendawula, the chairperson for the board of Trustees this is a situation the club is keen to avoid.
Once bitten twice shy
‘We have the political elections due to be held in January. Plans to hold elections have been going on since mid this year or even before that. We would not have wished Villa being bargained at a political rally. I am the one who is going to do this. Please elect me as a member of parliament,’ Ssendawula explained.
‘When we realised this then we decided to let the general election out of the way. As trustees we felt that was proper,’ added Ssendawula who expects the elections to be held in March.
Accountability call
Misagga also wants the club to account for the Shs3.02b received from the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) as compensation fees for SC Villa Park in Nsambya.
‘For us we saw this compensation as an opportunity for us to have our own home and accordingly started looking for a piece of land that can help us as Villa to set up our own stadium,’ Ssendawula shed more light.
‘Given that we have grown to a level that we are more in Kampala, we are looking for land that is closer to Kampala. We did not want to spend the money on the running of the team and we put it on a fixed deposit account.
‘That arrangement gives us a rate of Shs34m each month. As we speak today, we can comfortably say the current figure is Shs4.5b which is still accumulating. We are not using that money for day-to-day running of the club.’
Big plans ahead
‘When we got that money word went around that the government was about to procure land around the Kampala neighbourhood for investors. So we approached the investment authority people and we said we are showing our interest if and when this opportunity arises. We have been following this and at the same time our money continues to earn interest,’ Ssendawula concluded at the well-attended meeting.
EVENTS CHRONOLOGY
2018: The club was under an interim committee led by William Nkemba since 2018 after Ben Misagga’s departure.
2021: Two previous attempts to hold elections in August 2021 were halted by court injunctions due to alleged irregularities.
Mid 2021: Omar Mandela emerged as the sole candidate after picking up nomination forms including a Shs19.5m fee and a complete executive list.
November 2021: Mandela, a former club treasurer who had left the club in 2005, returned as president.
November 2025: Mandela four-year term ended