The President of the Federation of Uganda Football Association, Moses Magogo (pictured) has defended the proposal to have individuals wearing of selling fake jerseys for the national team, Uganda Cranes.
Magogo, who doubles as Budiope East MP, made the defense while appearing before Parliament’s Committee of Education and Sports to present his National Sports Bill 2022.
“As you see today, I will use the example of the National team the Uganda Cranes you find almost everybody putting on the replica shirt and the federation doesn’t necessarily benefit from that, neither do the athletes because there hasn’t been a law to prohibit that. So I am proposing various provisions to ensure that it is dealt with so that the original creators of the value of these materials benefit from that,” said Magogo.
In clause 51 of the National Sports Bill, Magogo proposes to criminalise actions where a person imports, manufactures, distributes, produces, distributes, sells or offers for sale or trades or displays for sale any counterfeited Uganda sports branded materials, attire, apparel or any other item without the authorization of a national sports organization ; has in his or her possession or has on his or her body or any part of the body any counterfeited Ugandan sports branded materials, attire, apparel or any other item.
Magogo in his bill proposes to have a person who commits an offence to be declared liable on conviction, to imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years or to a fine not exceeding one hundred and twenty currency points equivalent to Shs2.4M, or to both fine and imprisonment.
The FUFA President further proposes to have the person who contravenes in addition to the fine or penalty imposed pay the national sports organisation damages and compensation for the loss suffered by the national sports organisation.
The Minister of State for Sports, Peter Ogwang while presenting the Physical Activity and Sports Bill proposed the establishment of the national Anti-Doping Organisation and sought to outlay doping in sports and proposed to have culprits face sanctions imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
On the other hand, Magogo in the National Sports Bill proposes to have sports people found guilty of doping to serve a jail term of 5years.
The FUFA President also called for the establishment of a Sports Arbitration Tribunal to deal with Sports cases as it is done in other nations instead of lumping them up with other cases.
He said, “The law should create the National Court of Sports Arbitration because what happens is that many issues end up in courts of law which is against international sports affiliations and it isn’t something expensive.”
