FOOTBALL, FINANCE AND THE MYTH OF THE LUCKY BREAK

The World Cup brings an excitement to me, undeemed since my first world cup in 1982. Unlike now when we are looking to put the GOAT (Greatest of all time) debate to rest, the star of that world cup for me was the football -- the Tango Espana.

For months or was it years after, that ball, whose design was a break from the alternating black and white pentagons of a previous Adidas balls, was enough to ensure everybody was your best friend if you owned one.

True that was the World Cup that served as Paolo Rossi’s redemption, announced Diego Maradona – he was red carded in his last match against Brazil when he planted his studs in Brazilian Batista’s groin and Cameroon’s unbeaten run at their debut. But the Tango was it for me.

As I have grown older I have added another layer to my appreciation for the biggest sporting event in the world – the business of football.

Every four years the World Cup reminds us that football is not just 22 men chasing a ball. It is organisation, money, logistics, culture, psychology and national ambition compressed into 90 minutes.

The 2026 edition makes the point even louder. For the first time, the tournament is being hosted by three countries — the United States, Mexico and Canada — with 48 teams playing 104 matches across 16 cities. FIFA expects the tournament cycle to generate about US$11 billion (approximately Shs40 trillion) in revenue, making it the richest World Cup in history. Broadcasting rights alone will generate more than US$4 billion, while ticketing, hospitality and sponsorships are expected to contribute several billion more.

That is not merely a football tournament. It is a global business enterprise.

To host a World Cup, you need airports, roads, hotels, stadiums, security, television infrastructure, immigration systems, medical support, volunteers and the capacity to move hundreds of thousands of people across cities without the whole thing collapsing. Hosting a World Cup is a feat.

Qualifying for one is also a feat.

There are no flukes.

A country may get one lucky goal. It may benefit from one refereeing decision. It may have one golden generation. But to arrive at the World Cup requires years of youth development, coaching, administration, player welfare, medical support, competitive exposure and the ability to manage pressure over a long qualifying campaign.

That is why some of the most interesting teams to watch this year are not necessarily the traditional giants. Japan, Norway and Morocco may not all win the tournament, but they demonstrate the point that football success is built long before the first whistle.

Japan is perhaps the clearest example. Three decades ago, Japanese football was still finding its place in the global game. Then came the J-League in 1993, professionalisation, academies, coaching structures and a deliberate national football philosophy. Today, Japan is no longer treated as a tourist at the World Cup. Its players are scattered across Europe’s top leagues. Its teams are technically brave, tactically disciplined and psychologically unfazed by the big names. That is not luck. That is a 30-year plan paying dividends.

Norway tells a slightly different story. For years, it produced talented players but lacked the depth and system to consistently trouble the biggest nations. Over the last decade, however, Norwegian players have broken into world-class leagues in numbers and with impact. Erling Haaland and Martin Ødegaard are the obvious poster boys, but the real story is not just two stars. It is a system that has improved talent identification, coaching and pathways from domestic football into Europe’s elite game.

Morocco may be the most fascinating of the three. Its 2022 semi-final run was treated by many as a miracle. It was not. It was the result of infrastructure, federation strategy, diaspora scouting and national ambition. The Mohammed VI Football Academy and Morocco’s deliberate courting of players of Moroccan descent abroad have given the Atlas Lions a depth that many African countries envy.

This year Morocco has pushed that idea even further. It has reportedly become the first national team to field a side whose players were all born outside the country they represent. Some may frown at that. But diaspora talent is still national capital.

This is the lesson for Uganda.

We want qualification without the boring work of pitches, academies, nutrition, school competitions, transparent federation finances, local league marketing, coaching certification and player development pathways. We want the final whistle without the 20-year pipeline.

The World Cup punishes that thinking.

More importantly, it exposes the difference between administrators who are custodians and those who are consumers. The Japanese football administrators who professionalised the J-League in the early 1990s knew they would probably never enjoy the full fruits of their work. The architects of Morocco’s football renaissance knew the biggest rewards would come years after they had left office. They planted trees whose shade would be enjoyed by future generations.

That is the mentality Uganda’s football administrators have too often lacked.

As long as football leadership is viewed primarily as an opportunity to line pockets rather than build institutions, Ugandan football will remain trapped in mediocrity. A football nation is not built in a four-year cycle. It is built over decades. It requires leaders willing to invest in systems whose rewards they may never personally enjoy.

Uganda’s World Cup dream will not be born in one qualification campaign, one foreign coach or one talented generation. It will be born in schools, academies, district leagues, better coaching, proper pitches, credible administration and a sports economy that rewards excellence.

The uncomfortable truth is that we do not lack talent. We lack systems. Talent occasionally wins matches. Systems consistently qualify for World Cups.

There are no flukes. Not in football. Not in development. And certainly not at the World Cup. The scoreboard eventually catches up with the quality of the system behind it.

THE BUSINESS CASE FOR ARSENAL'S RETURN TO THE SUMMIT

The skying of Gabriel’s penalty in the finals of the Champion’s League final last weekend should not detract from a greater business story surrounding the return of Arsenal to the summit of European soccer.

Arsenal's return is often explained through the lens of Mikel Arteta's managerial brilliance, smart recruitment, and a talented young squad. All of that is true.

But the deeper story began nearly three decades ago when Arsenal made a decision that would fundamentally reshape the club's future: leaving their old home Highbury and building the Emirates Stadium.

What Arsenal are enjoying today is the payoff from a long-term investment whose benefits took almost twenty years to fully materialize. It is a story of delayed gratification, strategic patience, and enduring short-term pain for long-term gain.

It is also a story with important lessons for Uganda.

The Highbury Problem

By the late 1990s Arsenal were among Europe's elite clubs. Under Arsène Wenger, they won league titles in 1998, 2002 and 2004, including the famous Invincibles season.

Yet beneath the success lay a structural weakness.

Highbury, though iconic, held only about 38,000 spectators. Arsenal simply could not generate the revenues of rivals such as Manchester United, whose Old Trafford accommodated more than 67,000 fans. Football was becoming increasingly commercialized, and financial strength was becoming as important as footballing excellence.

Arsenal faced a choice: preserve the romance of Highbury or build a platform for future growth.

They chose growth.

Paying for the Future

The Emirates Stadium was one of the biggest infrastructure projects ever undertaken by a football club.

The move transformed Arsenal's business. Matchday revenues more than doubled, rising from roughly £35-40 million (sh200b) annually at Highbury to more than £90 million after the move. Commercial opportunities expanded dramatically while the club's global profile grew.

The numbers tell the story. Around the time Arsenal committed to the Emirates project, the club's enterprise value was estimated at less than £500 million (about sh2.5 trillion). Annual revenues hovered around £100-140 million.

Today Arsenal generate nearly £700 million in annual revenues and are valued at approximately £2.5 billion. In dollar terms, the club's valuation has risen from roughly US$500 million in the early Emirates era to more than US$3.4 billion today.

In other words, Arsenal's value has increased more than five-fold while revenues have expanded by a similar magnitude. The trophies may have disappeared for long stretches, but value creation did not. The club was quietly transforming itself from a successful football team into one of the world's most valuable sporting institutions.

But none of this came cheaply.

The stadium had to be financed. Debt had to be serviced. Costs had to be controlled.

And the burden fell largely on Wenger.

Wenger's Hidden Achievement

History remembers Wenger for the Invincibles. Yet his greatest contribution may have come after the trophies.

While Chelsea benefited from Roman Abramovich's billions and Manchester City later enjoyed Abu Dhabi's vast wealth, Arsenal were effectively paying a mortgage.

Transfer spending was constrained. Wage bills were tightly managed. Star players departed. Thierry Henry, Cesc Fàbregas, Samir Nasri and Robin van Persie all left during this period.

Supporters interpreted these departures as a lack of ambition.

The reality was that Arsenal were building tomorrow while trying not to lose today.

Wenger managed one of football's most difficult balancing acts. Between 1998 and 2016 Arsenal qualified for the Champions League every season. Those appearances generated crucial revenues that helped sustain the club during the Emirates years.

The famous jokes about Arsenal repeatedly finishing fourth overlooked an important truth: fourth place was helping pay for the stadium.

What looked like stagnation was actually strategic endurance.

Two Steps Forward, Three Steps Back

For much of the Emirates era Arsenal appeared trapped in a cycle of two steps forward and three steps back.

The club would develop a promising team only to lose key players. Rivals seemed to move ahead faster. Supporters became increasingly impatient.

Yet beneath the surface, the fundamentals were improving.

The debt burden was shrinking relative to revenues. Commercial income was growing. Arsenal's global reach was expanding. Most importantly, the club's enterprise value was compounding.

This is perhaps Wenger's most underrated legacy. He helped oversee a period in which Arsenal's value increased by billions of pounds despite operating with a budget smaller than many rivals. The football may not always have reflected progress, but the business certainly did.

The trophies arrived much later than fans expected.

The value creation arrived first.

Today Arteta is harvesting crops planted long before his arrival.

The lesson? Transformative investments rarely produce immediate results. Often they make things harder before they make things better.

Uganda's Arsenal Moment

The parallel with Uganda is difficult to ignore.

Over the last four decades Uganda has averaged roughly 6 percent annual economic growth. GDP has expanded more than tenfold. Tax revenues have risen more than sixty-fold. Infrastructure has improved dramatically. Exports have diversified from a handful of agricultural commodities into a much broader basket.

Yet, like Arsenal at Highbury, Uganda may be approaching the limits of what its current model can deliver.

The next leap will require bigger bets.

Infrastructure investments in energy, transport and logistics. Human capital investments in education, healthcare, science and technology. The creation of new markets in agro-industrialization, mineral beneficiation, financial services, tourism and digital services.

Some of these investments will initially feel like Arsenal's Emirates years. Resources will be stretched. Returns may appear disappointing. Progress may seem frustratingly slow.

There will be moments when it feels like two steps forward and three steps back.

But Arsenal's story reminds us that the most important investments are often invisible at first. The stadium looked like a burden before it became an advantage. The debt looked like a constraint before it became a platform for growth. The sacrifice looked like stagnation before it became success.

The challenge for Uganda is not whether it can continue growing. It is whether it has the discipline (no corruption), patience and courage to make the long-term investments necessary to move from growth to transformation.

Arsenal's return to the summit was not built in a season. It was built over twenty years.

That is perhaps the important business lesson.

THE RWENZORI MARATHON: THE ALCHEMY OF WEALTH CREATION

Last week, the Rwenzori Marathon slated for August 22 was launched.

Since the last edition, the race has earned World Athletics Label status — placing it on the same calendar as the New York City Marathon and the London Marathon. It is now one of only three races on the African continent with such recognition. Government has pledged $1 million to boost international promotion and enhance the runner experience.

Pause there.

A quirky run at the foot of the Rwenzori Mountains four years ago is today a globally accredited sporting asset attracting public capital.

That is not just a sporting milestone.

It is wealth alchemy.

At the centre of this transformation is Amos Wekesa, who has parlayed decades of experience in Uganda’s tourism sector into building a race that now sits on the world’s athletics calendar. This did not happen because Kasese suddenly became more beautiful. The mountains were always there — snow-capped, dramatic, storied as the “Mountains of the Moon.”

But scenery does not generate GDP. It must be structured.

That is the first principle of enterprise building: endowment is not enterprise.

Uganda is richly endowed — rivers, mountains, waterfalls, wildlife, sunshine and soil. Yet we often admire what we have rather than price it intelligently. We photograph beauty without converting it into revenue.

The Rwenzori Marathon changes that equation.

It packages geography into product. Runners cross the equator. They traverse breathtaking scenery. They finish amid culture and celebration. Landscape becomes experience. Experience becomes income.

In financial terms, World Athletics Label status is equivalent to a credit rating upgrade. It signals compliance with global standards — route integrity, anti-doping compliance, safety systems and operational discipline. Credibility reduces risk. Reduced risk attracts participants. Participants attract sponsors. Sponsors attract capital.

The government’s $1 million pledge is therefore not charity.

It is leverage. Public capital is following proven execution. But look deeper.

A marathon is not an entry-fee business.

Every runner books accommodation. Every visitor hires transport. Every photograph markets Uganda globally.

Hotels in Kasese fill. Tour operators bundle safari extensions. Vendors sell food and crafts. The event becomes an economic node. Value multiplies beyond the starting line.

This is ecosystem thinking — a tourism mindset applied to sport. You sell the experience, not just the ticket.

Wekesa understands this instinctively because tourism has always been about multiplying value along a chain

: flight, lodge, tour, experience, merchandise. The marathon simply grafts that model onto athletics.

Now widen the lens.

Uganda boasts extraordinary natural endowments: the Source of the Nile, the volcanic slopes of Mount Elgon, the thundering spectacle of Murchison Falls.

These are not just postcard attractions. They are dormant balance sheet assets. With disciplined strategy, each could anchor a globally competitive experience — endurance races, eco-summits, ultra-trails, conservation festivals — professionally packaged, internationally accredited, deliberately scaled.

The constraint is not nature.

It is mindset.

Too often, we speak of “potential” as if it were an achievement. Potential is merely unmonetised capacity. Wealth is created when someone does the hard work of structuring, certifying, marketing and scaling that capacity.

When properly structured, ventures of this nature create tangible local value:

Jobs in hospitality, logistics and security. Small businesses along supply chains. Increased tax revenues.
Infrastructure improvements justified by demand.

Tourism-led enterprise has a multiplier effect that manufacturing in a small economy often struggles to replicate quickly. It distributes income geographically and stimulates ancillary investment.

The Rwenzori Marathon also teaches patience.

It did not chase bloated numbers in year one. It built credibility incrementally. Hydration stations worked. Timing systems improved. Each year refined the runner experience.

Reputation compounded quietly until accreditation followed.

In finance, we understand compound interest. In enterprise building, we must learn to appreciate compound credibility.

Four years in, the marathon is transitioning from event to institution.

And institutions are powerful things.

Institutions reduce risk. Reduced risk attracts capital. Capital enables reinvestment.
Reinvestment strengthens institutions. That is how value compounds beyond personalities and outlives founders.

For Uganda to move forward, we need more practitioners of this alchemy.

Not more admirers of endowment. Not more speeches about potential. More builders who look at a river, a mountain or a waterfall and see a structured revenue stream.

Wekesa’s contribution is not merely organising a race. It is demonstrating a template: identify undervalued assets, apply sector expertise, build credibility patiently, monetise the ecosystem and anchor to global standards.

The mountains did not change.

What changed was how someone chose to see them — not as backdrop, but as balance sheet.

Uganda’s progress will not come from discovering new rivers or taller mountains. It will come from more citizens practicing the disciplined art of turning what we already have into globally competitive institutions.

The Rwenzori Marathon is only four years old. Yet it already shows what is possible when entrepreneurial imagination meets natural endowment.

That is the kind of wealth creation we require.

Not once a year in Kasese.

But every day, across the country.

THE ECONOMICS OF THE OLYMPIC GAMES

The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, US were the first games I watched.

That edition was famous for the US Carl Lewis winning four gold medals. It was also the year Kenyan Julius Korir won the steeplechase, starting a string of nine straight golds in the event by our Kenyan neighbours, that lasted until the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

So last week very much older, I settled in and gleefully arranged my remotes close at hand to enjoy two weeks of the Olympic smorgasbord.

I was not disappointed in week one.

US gymnast Simone Biles cemented her place as the greatest gymnast of all time, leading the US to gold in the team event and winning the women’s all-around event for herself. And at the time of writing she was in the finals of three other events and looking like a sure deal to bag gold in all.

The South Sudan men’s basketball team gave a good account of themselves against the US team, going down 103-86. This match was much anticipated, as only days ago it took a Lebron James three pointer in the final second of the game to squeeze past our northern neighbours 101-100.

We shall not say much about the women’s volleyball event.

But I have since developed an interest in the economics of sport and it was interesting understanding what it took to put these Olympics together.

For starters it is estimated that about €9billion (sh36.3trillion) was spent to make the Games happen, most of which was from private funding.  France did the new and upgraded the infrastructure which accounted for less than a half of the total budget...

The projections are that the economic benefits to the Paris region over the duration of the games and beyond will between €7 and €11billion (upto sh44trillion) due to a boost in tourism, job creation and infrastructure improvements.

There will be 329 gold medals on offer and the 48 Athletics winners will each walk away with $50,000.

For me the beauty of these games is that the private sector is picking up most of the tab. That means that except for a few vanity projects, these monies will be efficiently spent and show a return, with less impact to the public purse than if the government bankrolled the whole event.

The funding of sports in any society is out of the surpluses that economy can generate. The bigger the economy the more they can fund sports.

Governments used to see sports as a way for the  youth to expend energy and not pay attention to politics, but in the last few decades or so the rise of professional sports has shown that sport can be bona fide economic activity, which while making the youth busy can afford them real livelihoods. In a few instances beyond their wildest dreams or if they had taken the traditional white collar career path. Potential gold medalist Carlos Alcaraz has already made about $8million in prize money this year alone.

  And he is only 21.

But these suplurses especially from the private sector, are far from being charitable handouts. The private sector wants to see a return, often in terms of marketing benefits.

In Uganda where our sports administrations are volunteer based, it’s hard for the private sector to pour money into sports, because they cannot see a return on their investment.

Apart from regulatory oversight, sports does not need government to thrive. The US the world’s greatest sporting nation has no sports ministry. And yet they have sent just over 500 athletes to the Olympics.

The US sports associations have become adept at creating sports events, marketing them and selling them to corporate America. Basketball, American football and baseball are now multibillion dollar enterprises. At the Olympics the US is dominant in gymnastics, swimming, track and field.

And after conquering America they are spreading their wings abroad.

Our sports officials – assuming they want the best for their sports, would be wise to take a leaf from the US model of financing sport and its applicability in a country where there are more pressing needs than sports to fund.

So while I ooh and aah at the athletes performance, never mind marveling what it took to get into that demigodesque (see the women volleyballers) shape, a look under the hood at the economics of sport is just as entertaining if not more so, for me.

 

MAKING SENSE OF THE BUSINESS OF SPORT

Last week former MP Odonga Otto lit up social media with claims that Uganda’s sports bodies, more specifically football governing body FUFA and the Uganda Olympic Committee (UOC) receive millions of dollars a year from the international parent bodies to support sport but that the sportsmen do not benefit.

The former MPs diatribe was prompted by the question “Why isn’t Uganda at the World Cup?”.

Interestingly movie streaming company, Netflix, released a docuseries “FIFA Uncovered” a damning expose of how football governing body is riddled with corruption.

All this was happening against the backdrop of one of the most exciting World Cup’s in recent memory.

I think the honorable Otto’s claims should be looked into, if only so our sportsmen can get the much-needed facilitation they sorely deserve. But that is a story for another day.

However, what piqued my interest this week was the release of Forbes annual list of highest paid sportspersons.

Its an exciting list, like all such lists go.

"At the top of the list was Argentine footballer, Lionel Messi who last year made $130m (sh480b) before tax on and off the pitch. Messi, 34, took a salary cut to join Paris St Germain from Barcelona but business partnerships with Adidas, Budweiser and PepsiCo more than made up for the shortfall and then some...

There were other household names in the world of sports on the list like basketball’s LeBron James ($121m), Stephen Curry($92.8m) and Kevin Durant($92.1m); Soccer’s Christian Ronaldo ($115m) and Neymar ($95m); now-retired Tennis player Roger Federer ($90.7m) and boxer Canelo Alvarez ($90m) among others.

Interestingly despite the recent global crisis, sportsmen’s earning have been seen a lot of inflation. A decade ago the highest paid athlete was boxer Floyd Mayweather who earned in ($85m) and Ronaldo was the only soccer player in the top ten.

A decade further back Tiger Woods was the top earning sportsman pulling in $69m that year. There was no soccer player in the top 10 that year. 

Clearly more and more money is being thrown at sport, are we seeing a corresponding jump locally?

Our sports associations are largely run by volunteer administrators, who while not getting a regular income (so we think), hang on to their positions like grim death. If you line them up they are not the most altruistic members of our society, so you have to wonder why they keep in office for so long. For the love of the game? Puleez!

That aside the explosion in incomes for athletes around the world is a reflection of the need for content to feed the media. Revenues from broadcast long outstripped matchday seat sales for premiership teams.

It makes sense, the more people watching a sport, the more people will pay to slap their logos on those athletes to gain top of mind awareness with the consuming public...

So that seems to be a logical place to start, how do we attract eyeballs to our sports? With internet and the falling price of data It is easier than ever before to do this.  A half decent smartphone positioned to film from a strategic place and live streaming on any number of social media would be a good start.

For people to consume your media product they need they need consistency and quality and then the numbers can be sold to corporate clients. Its not automatic that the numbers will flood to your uploads that is a function of awareness building and marketing.

The following that comes with that can then be leveraged for sponsorships. Increased revenues can then be used to beef up sportsmen welfare and improve existing infrastructure

I simplify of course but it is actually a linear logic.

The sports administrators will complain that this needs money anyway. True, but the administrators need to cross the table to the side of the corporate sponsors to see things from their perspective.

The man with the budget is looking to see how much bang he can get for his buck, the assurance that if he gives you money, he will be able to report more sales of his product or greater brand awareness. If you can show him that, it makes it that much easier to loosen the purse strings. Its sales 101, show me value and I show you the money...

The money man on the other side of the table want also to see organization, so that he is sure that at the minimum his money will be good use and better still there can be a long-term relationship built. So, our organisations need to get organized (ironic?) before they can get money. Is it in anyone’s interest to keep them disorganized?

By the time Ronaldo commands $55m in off field income, his agents can point to the more than 690 million social media followers around the world, as a guarantee of eyeballs on him. These are independently verifiable. And by the way Ronaldo has all these followers due somewhat to momentum – I am following Ronaldo because my friends are following him, but more because his followers came from a deliberate marketing effort. You try to get a thousand followers on social media and you will see how hard it is to raise numbers.

THE BUSINESS OF THE WORLD CUP

It has been 40 years since I was introduced to the football World Cup. The World Cup in 1982, held in Spain, was won by Italy.

The tournament also introduced us to the Tango Espana, the official ball of that World Cup, and the last genuine leather ball to be used in the World Cup. That ball, a more stylish option to the old black and white ball, was a collector’s item in the playgrounds that I grew up on.

It was the year that Italian Paulo Rossi, previously suspended for match fixing, was top scorer and player of the tournament. He is one of only three players to ever have won all three – World Cup, Golden Boot and Golden Ball in a single tournament. He fired up our childhood imaginations, we all wanted to be Paulo Rossi.

This year’s World Cup did not seem to be accompanied with the funfair I was used to. Maybe because of my lowered expectations, I have been pleasantly surprised at how I have enjoyed the matches. It helps of course that the underdogs are upsetting the form book, as well.

But ahead of this edition of the World Cup, the story of how much Qatar had spent to host the event was big news.

"According to who you believe Qatar has spent about $300b (sh1,100trillion) over the last 12 years in preparation for the event. To put this in perspective Qatar has a GDP of $180b so they almost spent twice the size of their economy on this World Cup. Or to put it in better perspective over the last 12 years they have spent the equivalent of the GDP of Uganda every year to prepare!

And even more jaw dropping is that the Qataris expect the games to bring in $17b over the mouth long event, not even ten percent of the initial cost.

The figures are further mind boggling when you see that this World Cup is going to cost more than 15 times the $15b spent in the 2014 Brazilian edition, the next most expensive World Cup ever.

The Qataris are asking, who says we should recoup our investment at the World Cup?

The investments? They have built eight stadiums from scratch of which seven will be dismantled after the games; They built 108 hotels to house the estimated 1.3 million visitors they expect during the month-long event; They have doubled the capacity of their airport and built a whole new railway system under the desert.

Most immediately this huge government expenditure is driving Qatar’s economy, which has been growing steadily for the last decade and set to grow in double digits this year.

"But while the World Cup has triggered this massive outlay, it is only part of a larger plan to make Qatar a global transport hub. Of the reported $300b only $10 billion was spent on infrastructure specifically for the World Cup, which means developments will continue after the final whistle is blown.....

It makes sense. While the leaders of Qatar are not beholden to their people in the “western” democracy sense, they needed a big event like the World Cup to not only trigger the massive expenditures we have seen, but also announce to the rest of the world that they are open for business. Which better event to use than the World Cup?

Understandably, one of the major winners of this construction boom is the Qatari construction industry, which given the capacity they have built will be able to move more aggressively to take up contracts at home and abroad.

But given the growing momentum of the green energy movement, the oil sheikhs of the middle east have seen the writing on the wall and preparing to pivot away from reliance on oil revenues. Dubai was the early bird on this.

In the late 1970s and 1980s China went on a similar spending spree on infrastructure and human capacity development. At the time western economies were similarly unimpressed and wondered what they will use all that capacity for. China is still building but is also now the second largest economy in the world and may very well rise to the biggest economy within the decade.

"The narrative has been, up to this point that these big extravaganzas – including the Olympics, are just gravy trains for the ruling government and their cronies, that actually leave the tax payers picking up the tab with little benefit to themselves....

The Economist last week had an infographic that showed that apart from the World Cups in Mexico and Russia in 1986 and 2018 respectively, all other World Cups since 1966 have spent more than they earned during the event.

It may just be that after Qatar other governments may start scrambling to host future events, planning them to have longer term benefits to their respective economies way after the event.

Of course, planning is one thing and the reality is something else altogether. The Qataris have set their plan in motion we should return to this space in a decade or two to see whether it actually panned out. See you then.

TRIBUTE: SERENA WILLIAMS ONCE IN A GENERATION LEGEND

I was too young to see Pele or Muhammad Ali or Bjorn Borg in their prime. But if one lives long enough another legend invariably comes along. I saw Diego Maradona, Mike Tyson and Roger Federer, all legends enough that the questions have been asked whether their respective achievements would stand up to the legends of yesteryear.

"At the end of August Serena Williams played what may be her last professional tennis match in the third round of the US Open, bringing to a close a professional career that started 27 years ago. To put that number into perspective, the current world number ones in both men’s and women’s tennis – Danii Medvedev and Iga Swiatek were not born when Serena, 40, turned professional in 1995...

That is a major part of her legend, that she could sustain her presence at the highest level of the game for so long.

And what a career it has been.  The highlight is that she has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, winning these major tournaments is the objective measure of achievement in tennis. She is only second – man or women, to Australian Margaret Court in major titles won, but experts point out that Court won 13 of her 24 titles during the amateur era, which means she was not necessarily the best female player during that time.

In trying to tie Court’s record, Serena came one match short in four events after 2017.  2017 is significant because it’s the year she gave birth to her daughter. Her last two grand slam finals losses were to Naomi Osaka and Bianca Andreescu, who were not born by the time she turned professional.

 The 2020 lockdown due to Covid, arguably blunted her last charge for immortality. After Covid she was never really the same and at this year’s US Open was ranked 605 in the world.

Her record also includes four Olympic Gold medals – one in singles and three in doubles, where in all instances she partnered her sister, Venus.

As if we need any more convincing, Serena won 85 percent of the 849 matches she played over the course of her career and is the highest earning female tennis player. At $96m, she has earned more than double the second highest earner, her sister, Venus, who took home $42m. And these were only on court earning she probably more than doubled that figure in product endorsements over the span of her career.

Technically she was sound in all departments. Her serve won her many free points, its power and precision digging her out of many a hole.

The purists will frown at her double backhand, but that is now accepted form, given how early kids are now taking up the game. While she played mostly from the baseline, with power off both wings and a relatively flatter ball than her rivals. One shudders to think what Serena would have achieved if she had made more frequent forays to the net, to cut off the high looping groundstrokes her contemporaries have often served up over her career.

At her prime she was mentally as strong as, if not stronger than any female athlete before including Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova or Steffi Graff the other legends before her.

For other mortals these achievements – her longevity at the highest level and unassailable winning record on court, alone would be enough to cement her place in tennis history.

But there is more.

The legend of Serena begins before her birth. Her father, Richard had a light bulb moment in 1978 when Romanian Virginia Ruzici picked up a $40,000 check for winning the French Open that year. The way the story is told, he then convinced wife, Oracene, to have two more children, preferably girls, through whom he would channel his ambition to get a piece of that money.

Owner of a small security company and quite well off, well off enough to have a house in Long Beach, California, he moved his family to Compton, a neighbourhood immortalised in rap music for its gang related crime and violence.

Richard did this because he figured that for his daughters to break into the lily-white world of tennis, they needed to get toughened up, something living in Long Beach would not do for them.

The experiment could have gone badly wrong. Richard at one time confronted a gang member who was making passes at Venus and was badly beaten for his trouble, in front of his young daughters...

Richard taught himself how to play tennis and then set upon imparting his homemade knowhow on his daughters.

They did not have a normal upbringing, spending hours on the public courts of Compton while the contemporaries were out looking for trouble.

He upset the playbook on how to raise talented tennis players – avoiding the junior tournament circuit, reluctantly releasing them to outside coaching long after their contemporaries had joined full time academies and rejecting the early endorsement deals that would have eased the financial burden on his effort to develop world beaters.

Thanks to Richard’s tenacity, marketing savvy and invariably, Venus and Serena’s superlative talent, by the time they were 14 they had each turned professional.

Funnily in Richard’s plans the girls were supposed to go to college and get degrees and only then would they become professional tennis players. They were ahead of schedule by almost 10 years...

One wonders about mother Oracene. She has a been a constant presence at her daughters’ tournaments on whichever parts of the world her daughters are doing battle. She has never spoken out of turn during the last two decades, mainly because she allowed her now divorced husband represent and let her daughters’ tennis do the talking. Her unvarnished account of what it takes to deal with a manic husband and raise super talented daughters is guaranteed to be a best seller.

There are many facets to the Serena legend and Venus plays a major part of it. Venus taller, leaner and the more talented of the two when they were younger, not only laid the path for Serena   but they, must have offered useful support to each other a largely white tennis community, which initially saw the girls as circus attractions, before they started dominating the sport.

Venus has accumulated her own impressive numbers – seven Grand Slam titles, winning 75 percent of all her matches and five Olympic medals – four gold and one silver. And at 42 has not yet thrown in the towel on her professional career.

The legend of Serena is only part of the larger legend of the Williams.

The sisters have been successful for so long they have made it look ordinary. They have inspired a host of ladies of colour during their illustrious career, but it is hard to imagine another accomplished pair of sisters or even one other tennis player who has so captured the public imagination, come along soon.

Since the Covid lockdown, Serena’s mortality has begun to show. Where she would stare down an opponent and intimidate them into submission, everyone seems to think they have a chance against her; Where she was quick enough to get to the furthest ball and conjure a winning shot out of nothing, she has lately been barely reaching shots, leave alone muster a credible response...

But for us who have watched this legend grow and win, nothing can diminish her and we are glad to let her go off to do other things.

The Cubans have a saying “You cannot cover the sun with your thumb”. They may have been talking about the Williams.

 

 

 

 

 

MY FAVOURITE BUSINESSMAN

It is the stuff of legend.

The story goes that on Saturday’s Charles Lubega would mount his speakers on his window which faced into the quadrangle at Livingstone Hall and set his player to play. He would then climb down the stairs basin and clothes in hand to do his laundry as he listened.

After not so long Saturday morning at “Stone” was a heaving mass of activity as other students stopped by to sample Charlie’s latest hits.

As his popularity grew he set up at the Guild Canteen, playing on Friday’s, Saturdays and sometimes due to public demand, on Sundays as well.

He did not stop there. Buying an additional set of machines to open his mobile disco. No party was with it, without the sound of Soul.

And then Patrick Bitature, wanted out of Ange Noir. And the rest as they say is history.

This is more than a quarter century ago, but Ange Noir – now Guvnor, still lives on, dominating Kampala’s night life, after all comers have come and gone.

This is not gospel truth, Charlie just does not tell his own story. But we shall not let the facts get in the way of a good story.

"Entering a market that was almost non-existent, raising standards incrementally, building the barriers to entry unilaterally, to the point now that there are many revelers who will not settle for less, at home or abroad...

Ange Noir has not only maintained a loyal crowd from the 1990s but has added subsequent generations of merrymakers and all without being tempted into race-to-the-bottom marketing gimmicks. This has ensured that standards have remained high – be it in the quality of the playlists, the ambiance or service.

So popular is the industrial area hangout that attempts to create some price discrimination and stratify the clientele by pocket size have fallen flat.

For a long time he has been my favourite businessman, but more and more I am liking what Lawrence Mulindwa is doing off Entebbe road.

Mulindwa last week unveiled a new coach, Portuguese Jorge Miguel Da Costa Duarte for his Vipers Football Club.  This came fast on the heels of an announcement of a sh500m Roofings Ltd sponsorship deal. Only days before his brand new 20,000 seater stadium at Kitende was cleared by the sport's African football authority, CAF, to host continental matches.

But what we are seeing is the finished product, or at least the rough outline of not only a great sporting establishment but a first class business too.

Initially there was the school St Mary’s Kitende, which has not only taken over domination of school soccer from Kibuli and Old Kampala, but has gone on to dominate the East African regional school competitions as well.

But he didn’t stop there, buying and converting stragglers Bunamwaya FC into Vipers FC as a preliminary destination for his school talent to settle.

"The last part has already paid dividends as at least a dozen players are already plying their trade abroad, with the most prominent of them being Farouk Miya, Lwanga Kizito and Yunus Sentamu who are playing professional football in Europe...

The stadium, the biggest stadium built in this country in 20 years, is just icing on the cake.

In a sporting business the main asset class is the intangible assets, where players would lie. 

Manchester United in 2016 reported total assets of about $1.95b of which intangible assets accounted for about half the total assets at about $900m. Fixed assets which include Old Trafford, the stadium, came in at about $300m

Looking at the whole Mulindwa operation from this perspective, he not only has a top team but has a rich pipeline of talent coming through from his school, which for all intents and purposes is the equivalent of a soccer academy in the Europe.

The beauty of this is that not only are the players developed from an early age, but when they are sold off the sell price is almost all profit.

Of course, there is a lot of work to do moving the operation away from one driven by its founder and chief backer, to a fully-fledged corporate organisation, which hopefully will outlive Mulindwa.

The lessons from my two favourite businessmen are many but a few stand out.

One, think long term. Don’t clamour for the quick gains. Be willing to forgo the good for the better and be willing to do the time and put in the work.  And relatedly don’t be content to being a big fish in our little, small pond. A few million shillings is plenty in Uganda, but with a million-dollar or even billion-dollar vision will make a world of difference. A business can only grow as big as its promoters dream, the bigger the dream the bigger the company.

"These heroes are important if only because when everyone is hemming and hawing, whining how it is difficult to make it in Uganda, they are keeping their noses to the grinding stone and showing how it can be done. In the process serving as inspiration for hundreds of thousands of businessmen in urgent need of local champions...

Charlie remains atop the Busharizi honours list, but only just.