The struggles in the game of Motorsports continues to escalate with rally drivers demand their share from Federation of Motorsports Clubs in Uganda (FMU) out of the initial 3bn shillings from the government.
The wrangles between the two parties stated way back in 2023 with FMU bosses claiming that the money from the government is for administrative purposes not to share with the drivers.
However, the drivers claim they are entitled to have a share of the Shs3bn that FMU receives from government.
The drivers believe that they are the main stakeholders of the sport and if they’re not available, the Federation has no job, stating that its a totally unfair that our of the 3bn, they don’t have any potion and yet they invest a lot in the sport to keep running.
While appearing on Nbs Sport on Monday, Rally Driver Nasser Mutebi asserted how FMU has not supported them during various events.
“We, the drivers and riders, are the biggest stakeholders in motorsport.” Nasser stated
“Without us, there is no motorsport.
We thought things would get better with government funding, but it’s disheartening to note that nothing has changed.” he added.
“During the Pearl of Africa Rally, FMU promised us fuel from Shell. I can swear to you, we did not get fuel. Instead we were conned out of 200 dollars by FMU. With due respect, not even a bottle of mineral water was given to the drivers.” The FMU President Jimmy Akena might not know these things, but it’s even rare to get food on race days.” he continued.
For starters, with the case taken to IGG last year, FMU accounts were frozen citing governance and accountability irregularities in the sport.
Jimmy Akena who took over as the Federation President from Dipu Ruparelia in May last year revealed that freezing of FMU accounts affected the running of the Federation.
“There is no money in the accounts. The issue is that our accounts are closed. We can’t receive any money at the moment.” In 3 quarters of the year, we have gotten only a quarter of one quarter in funding from the government.”.
Therefore, its upon the two parties to sit and resolve their differences before the game switch to limbos like it happened to Kickboxing and Netball.
