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KCCA to host SC Villa at Namboole as football returns to National Stadium
After nearly four years, football is set to return to Mandela National Stadium in Namboole.
The development comes after the Federation of Uganda Football Association (FUFA) announced that the refurbished stadium will host two Uganda Premier League matches on 1st May.
Rogers Byamukama, a FUFA Executive Committee member, told the press on Wednesday at FUFA Complex that the two UPL encounters will be used as the soft testing of the stadium as directed by CAF before granting the greenlight to host international games again.
"As we are all aware, there has been renovation works going on at Namboole and we are in the final stages of having the stadium re-opened. But one of the conditions CAF set was to have test matches and see if the venue is ready," Byamukama said.
"FUFA and the Uganda Premier League Secretariat sat together and agreed to have two League games serve as test matches for the refurbished stadium. We zeroed down on two key fixtures that have a bearing on the title race," he added.
The two fixtures are KCCA FC vs SC Villa which will kick off at 4:00pm and BUL FC vs Vipers SC which will be a night game with kickoff at 7:00pm.
According to Paul Kabaikaramu, the Uganda Premier League Manager, all four clubs were consulted and they agreed to have the matches played at Namboole.
"We engaged the clubs, especially the hosts BUL FC and KCCA FC who all agreed to this arrangement," he stated.
It should be noted that FUFA is fighting hard to have Uganda Cranes host their upcoming FIFA World Cup Qualifiers home matches against Botswana and Algeria in June at Namboole.
