There is no questioning Paul Joseph Put’s ability from the touchline as the Belgian arrives to his new Uganda Cranes coaching role with a CV highlight of leading Burkina Faso to the 2013 Africa Cup final, where they lost to Nigeria.
Even with his experience in African football stretching from 2008 to date, Paul Put has the merited ability to turn Uganda’s nosedived fortunes as the country prepares to co-host the 2027 Afcon finals with Kenya and Tanzania.
Indeed, while unveiling the 67-year-old on a two-year contract at Mengo on Thursday, Fufa president Moses Magogo narrated how the Belgian had beaten over 150 others and as such, “we believe will do a good job.”
Small problem, big problem
But there is a small problem. Big problem. A problem that annoyingly sticks like fleas do on a meaty cow.
The problem is especially troubling because this is a space where integrity is everything as millions of people are emotionally invested.
Only that the appointing authorities at Fufa seem to live in an alternate universe, where integrity is just another word in the 192-year-old Webster dictionary.
Put’s experience and potential notwithstanding, his scandalous past gets in the way. Always will.
A quick story! In March this year, Magogo, in company of Fufa CEO Edgar Watson, legal manager Dennis Lukambi and FUFA Investigations Chamber member Charles Twiine put up a strong show as he launched the ‘Anti-Match Fixing Campaign.’
“Match fixing kills the game because the beauty of football is in uncertainty,” explained Magogo, “If you kill this element and results are predetermined then the game will not survive.”
Seven months on and Magogo appoints Paul Put, a man who was in 2008 handed a three-year ban by the Belgian Football Federation after being found guilty of helping fix two league matches while manager of Lierse. What message is he exactly sending?
According to the UK publication - the Guardian, Lierse twice unexpectedly fielded reserve teams in Belgian top-flight league matches in 2005, seemingly as part of a match-fixing ring allegedly organised by the Chinese businessman Ye Zheyun.
An international arrest warrant was issued against Ye, who denies all charges, in 2006 but he returned to China.
Lierse were the only club sanctioned and Put the only individual. Forty people, including Put, were charged by the Brussels Correctional Tribunal court and in June 2014, a two-year suspended prison sentence was imposed on Put.
Meanwhile, Put moved to Gambia and worked there as the national team coach while serving his three-year ban imposed in Belgium.
"I accepted the ban because Fifa said I could work. So I didn't make any trouble in Belgium,” Put, who is adamant he was only made a scapegoat, told the Guardian in 2013.
"Match-fixing has always existed in football," he added, “If you look at cycling, at Lance Armstrong, it's always him who is pointed at but everybody was taking drugs.
“It's not that I've been doing match-fixing, not at all, but it has been declared in the media like this.”
That was not all. Put, until recently Congo Brazzaville coach, was again banned for life by former employers, the Guinea Football Federation, in 2019 for reportedly breaching the institution's code of ethics and discipline.
Fufa are quite something! Like the Bourbon kings, just within hours of digesting Put’s news, they further demonstrated that they had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing by announcing Sam Ssimbwa as the new Cranes assistant coach.
Ssimbwa himself is not a stranger to the burning subject. In April 2016, then Mike Mutebi’s assistant at KCCA, was banned by Fufa after being found guilty of violating the ethical code when he said he had the ability to bribe referees to influence matches.
All said, for all the claimed screening of a reported 150 plus candidates, you can’t help but question the competencies of the Fufa executive.
Not least that by just a single click on the internet shortly after Put was announced as the new Cranes coach, all these stories popped up.
The Fufa president himself, Magogo, was found guilty by Fifa in October 2019 of illegally reselling the 2014 World Cup tickets, a case serious enough to have you behind bars and out of the game for life.
But thanks to a plea bargain, he was banned for only two months, which he served and later returned to office. So the whole thing is easy to decipher, really!
October 2019: Moses Magogo is found guilty by Fifa of illegally reselling the 2014 World Cup tickets and, thanks to a plea bargain, is banned for only two months and returns to office later.
August 2019: Paul Put is banned for life by former employers, the Guinea Football Federation, for reportedly breaching the institution's code of ethics and discipline.
June 2014: Put is handed a suspended two-year prison sentence by a Brussels court for his role in an earlier match fixing scandal
2008: Paul Put is handed a three-year ban by the Belgian Football Federation after being found guilty of helping fix two league matches while manager of Lierse.
April 2016: Sam Ssimbwa is banned by Fufa for eight months after being found guilty of violating the ethical code when he said he had the ability to bribe referees to influence matches.
