Since 2008, American Football has been played in Uganda, but the seeds sown by passionate fans of America’s biggest sport have not hit the milestones in the last 18 years. This slow growth is obviously due to a lack of nourishing ingredients, like funding and grassroots recruitment, which the US Embassy and the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) have promised to provide.
The two partners, alongside the struggling American Football Federation of Uganda (AFFU), last week launched the US Exchange Alumni Gridiron League, a flagship tournament that will bring on board over 6,000 U.S. exchange alumni and the embassy to jumpstart the sport in terms of athlete numbers and funding.
Real stuff starts with training in January, but the November-December period is for selection of players, who will constitute the 10 teams across the five regions of Uganda: West Nile, northern, central, eastern, and western. Each of those regions will produce a university team like Aga Khan, Muni, among others, and an alumni cluster team, meaning every region will produce two teams to participate in the year gridiron Super Bowl.
During the launch at the American Center last week, Mikael Cleverley, acting head of mission at the US Embassy, expressed the embassy’s commitment to funding the project as a vote of confidence to the US exchange alumni leadership. ‘We wouldn’t have funded it if we didn’t have full 100 percent confidence in your leadership. I’m very optimistic about what you’ll achieve.’
To AFFU president Steven George Okeng, this is an opportunity to foster the growth of American football in Uganda. ‘This is a very huge milestone for the American Football Federation Uganda. We now have the opportunity to spread out to 6,000 U.S. exchange alumni across Uganda. We appreciate the U.S. Embassy for the support towards this project, which could become an annual event that keeps on promoting unity, leadership and empowerment among the young people,’ he said, hoping the league attracts more universities in subsequent seasons.
The league will not play the conventional contact football; instead, it will take the flag football version-a fast-paced, non-contact variant of American football that resembles tug rugby, where defenders stop the ball carrier by pulling off one of the flags attached to a belt around their waist instead of tackling them. Jensen Mukiibi, a second-year nursing student at Aga Khan University, did not know about the flag version but cannot wait for his first taste. ‘My university likes sports. And I would like to be the one to introduce American Football there,’ said the boy who plays soccer, netball, volleyball and board games. Stella Nakaweesi, a YALI alumna, has not been active in sports, but with training, she is eager to challenge herself and feature for the central cluster.
Building bridges
To Jessica Sheillah Aanyu, the president Yali Uganda Chapter, who is also the director of the Gridiron League, this is more than just sport. It is more about the exchange of values. ‘As we were celebrating 250 years of American excellence in Uganda, Yali decided to bring the biggest American sport back here in Uganda because beyond the sport there’s so much the young people can learn from it: discipline, teamwork, leadership, commitment and competition,’ Aanyu said. ‘And most importantly, we are using American football to build bridges between Uganda and the United States by enhancing stronger bilateral partnerships with support through the U.S. Embassy in Uganda and with other U.S. exchange alumni across the world.’
Cleverly, the acting head of mission also rallied the Ugandan media to embrace the task of making the American football league bigger and accessible to vast audiences, not only through previewing, reviewing, and analysing games but also telling the backstories that make the athletes and coaches, the way the American media does it. ‘What I think that makes football really American are the stories behind each of those athletes, many of whom rise from humble or modest circumstances or challenging backgrounds to the top of their physical performance, fame and wealth and success,’ he said.