It’s now close to five months since the government of Uganda put a ban on all sports disciplines following the global outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
In all his previous addresses concerning the State of the pandemic in the country, President Museveni has been regarding sports as a “Leisure Economy” providing limited hope for it’s possible return.
However, in his statement communicated via his Twitter handle, Museveni finally given a glimmer of hope to the several sports lovers.
The fountain of honor believes that sports and tourism are subsidiary sectors and proposes borrowing a leaf from Europe where games have been played without spectators.
“On the COVID Pandemic: I welcome the positive suggestions like the idea of sports without audiences that have been tried in other countries of Europe,” Museveni twitted on Thursday.
“There are also ideas of isolating the tourism areas that I saw in Cuba. However, all this must be subsidiary to life. Any activity that can be opened safely, with SOPs, will be opened. I am one of the people most interested in good economic performance. However, economic performance should never be more important than lives,” the tweet concluded.
The development however comes at at a time when different sports Federations and Associations cancelled their 2020 activities on the calendar due to the uncertainties surrounding the return the sector in this COVID-19 epoch.
Only the 2020 Masaza Cup tournament and the Fufa Big League promotional play offs alongside the 2020/21 Uganda Premier League season are tentatively expected to kick off in October.