Tolerance, diversity key to a club’s success

At the peak of domestic football competition in the nineties, the traditional Big Three had a cocktail of leaders whose unity was the love and passion of the game.

At Express FC, there was the cool head of Vincent Bbale Mugera but he accommodated well radicals like Mama Baker and Kassim Buyondo. Villa was also a blend of all sorts of people, some of whom even hated one another but they worked in unison when it came to club matters.

There was hardly any conspiracy because the success of the club came first before personal issues. The key ingredient is tolerance. Tolerance involves accepting that everyone is different and therefore sees things in a different way.

For instance, whereas Buyondo had the power to rally fans in droves to attend matches, Bbale Mugera was the cool head to weather storms. At Villa, the late Andrew Kasagga Zzimwe didn’t often get along with the late Ogen Kevin Aliro but each of them had a tremendous contribution to the club.

Today, many football teams are in an identity crisis as Fufa seeks to penetrate and impose its will on them. Many club officials are being cowed into believing that working as Fufa extension will gain them favours. This is absurd and I am seeing a dangerous trend of discarding officials that are seen to be anti-Fufa.

I know for a fact that it is Moses Magogo’s dream to see Misagga out of Villa because I am a thorn in his daily machinations. Unfortunately for him and his likeminded cronies, Misagga doesn’t not depend on sitting on the executive to execute his duties. Football administration is a brainstorming of ideas because the game changes every day. You cannot expect to gag Misagga or try to ostracize him from Villa.

I don’t need to agree with my president Omar Ahmed Mandela to take Villa forward. Former Villa president Patrick Kawooya was an imposing figure on whose ideas Villa enjoyed great success but he still had dissenting from Mandela and others. At some point he had to give way and Villa went from strength to strength.

So, it is perfectly fine to have different opinions as long as passion is the driving force. For years, Villa’s biggest strength has been its diversity and anything that limits such freedoms can only hinder the club’s progress.

You only have to look at Vipers FC, where Dr Lawrence Mulindwa harmoniously blends well with radicals Haruna Kyobe and Thaddeus Kitandwe, to understand how diversity works.

The author is SC Villa first vice president in charge of mobilization