Sports lawsuits in Uganda have, in the past few years, produced a landmark image-rights judgment against the national football federation and its sponsor, a short-lived appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport by one of Kampala’s biggest clubs, and a wave of governance disputes at the Federation of Uganda Football Associations. A 2023 statute now routes most future sports disputes away from the ordinary courts and into arbitration, though the arbitration machinery it created is not yet running.
The Proline Image Rights Judgment
The most consequential sports case decided in Uganda is Proline Soccer Academy Limited v. MTN Uganda Limited, M/s QG Saatchi & Saatchi & FUFA (Uganda) Limited. It sat in the High Court for more than a decade before Justice Stephen Mubiru ruled in 2024.
Proline, which held exclusive image-licensing agreements with several Uganda Cranes players, sued MTN Uganda in 2011 for continuing to use the players’ likenesses in advertising after its one-year contract with Proline expired on September 8, 2008. FUFA was named as a co-defendant because it had purported to grant MTN those image rights without the players’ or clubs’ consent.
Justice Mubiru held that image rights belong to the individual athlete, that those rights are rooted in the constitutional right to privacy, and that they prevail over copyright where the two conflict. FUFA could not grant rights it did not hold. Accepting a national-team call-up, the court said, is not implied consent to the commercial use of a player’s likeness. FUFA’s own statutes recognize only clubs as members, not players, and the federation produced no image-rights contracts with the athletes involved.
MTN was ordered to pay UGX 570,600,000, calculated from the original annual contract value of UGX 114,120,000 applied across five years of unauthorized use between 2008 and 2013, plus six percent interest from the date the suit was filed in 2011, together with costs. The claim against the advertising agency QG Saatchi & Saatchi was dismissed because the firm had acted only as MTN’s agent. MTN was found entitled to seek indemnification from FUFA under their sponsorship agreement.
Justice Mubiru called the dispute a “case study” for the need for formal written agreements covering commercial use of athletes’ images. He discouraged the industry habit of folding image rights into general employment contracts and said sponsors and federations must obtain “unequivocal written consent” before using any athlete’s likeness commercially, whatever the athlete’s national-team status.
The KCCA FC Eligibility Case and Its Withdrawal From CAS
In early 2025, KCCA FC was punished for fielding defender Gavin Kizito Mugweri in a January 7 match against Mbarara City FC in the 2024/25 Uganda Premier League. Mbarara argued the player was serving a yellow-card suspension. KCCA said it had checked with the UPL secretariat, which cleared the player because referee William Oloya had failed to record a caution from an earlier match.
The FUFA Competitions Panel ruled for Mbarara on January 15, awarding a 3-0 forfeit and three points. The FUFA Appeals Committee upheld that decision on January 29. KCCA then filed with the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, and CAS gave FUFA ten days to respond in March 2025.
The appeal never reached a hearing. The Observer reported that FUFA discouraged the petition on the ground that it would jeopardize Uganda’s bid to host the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations. Pressure also came from the Kampala Capital City Authority, the Ministry of Education and Sports, and Parliament. KCCA withdrew the petition around late April or early May 2025. Had it continued, the club would have faced the principle of strict liability, under which clubs carry responsibility for player eligibility even when an external body has given clearance.
Governance Disputes at FUFA
Several of the legal fights in Ugandan sport trace back to FUFA itself. Moses Magogo has been FUFA president since 2013 and was re-elected unopposed for a fourth term on July 5, 2025, winning by acclamation at the Hoima Resort Hotel. His tenure has drawn repeated controversy.
In 2017, journalist Allan Ssewanyana reported Magogo to FIFA for allegedly reselling 177 World Cup tickets allocated to Uganda, pocketing roughly $45,000. FIFA reached a plea bargain with Magogo in 2019, finding he had violated Article 67 of the FIFA Code of Ethics, and imposed a two-month suspension from football activities and a fine of 10,000 Swiss francs. The Daily Monitor separately reported allegations that Magogo had directed broadcasting-rights contracts to companies he allegedly owned without competitive tender. When Uganda’s Criminal Investigation Department summoned Ssewanyana over his FIFA report, FIFA warned that this amounted to government interference under Article 14 of its statutes and could lead to FUFA’s suspension.
On May 30, 2024, the United States designated both Magogo and his wife, Anita Among, Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament, under Section 7031(c) of the State Department appropriations law. Among was designated for “involvement in significant corruption tied to her leadership of Uganda’s parliament” and Magogo as her spouse. Both were barred from entering the United States. The UK had already sanctioned Among in April 2024, citing corruption and the use of resources “dubiously accrued from Uganda,” and President Yoweri Museveni ordered an investigation into her assets in May 2024. The U.S. designation is expected to keep Magogo out of FIFA events held in the United States, including the 2026 World Cup.
A separate clash broke out in October 2025 when FUFA imposed a new multi-phase Uganda Premier League format under Rule 14:4-12 of the FUFA Competition Rules 2025 and a new revenue-sharing model requiring clubs to share match-day gate collections with the federation and league management. On October 2, Vipers SC president Dr. Lawrence Mulindwa announced a boycott of a match against Kitara FC, citing “unilateral decision-making” by FUFA, and alleged the federation owed Vipers prize money from the previous season and that a UGX 3.4 billion financial pledge was not credible. SC Villa owner Omar Mandela accused the federation of acting for “selfish financial gain.” Broadcast partner StarTimes reportedly failed to televise early matches during the instability. FUFA suspended the new format, saying it would allow time for “sensitisation.” The longer-term status of the reforms is unclear.
Where Sports Disputes Now Go: The National Sports Act
The National Sports Act, 2023 took effect on August 17, 2023, repealing the older National Council of Sports Act. The National Council of Sports is the central regulator overseeing national sports organizations, from community clubs to professional federations.
The Act changes the forum for sports disputes. Section 55 requires that disputes between federations and their members be resolved by arbitration rather than in ordinary courts, with arbitrators appointed by the Minister of Sports from a panel nominated by the National Council and the federations. Section 57 requires federations and associations to write that mandatory arbitration clause into their constitutions and to bar members from going to court over sports disputes.
Critics in the legal community argue the scheme undercuts party autonomy, the voluntary-consent principle at the heart of arbitration. Supporters note that FIFA’s Article 59 takes a similar line globally. The Ugandan High Court has “unlimited jurisdiction” under the constitution, but Parliament can enact what lawyers call ouster clauses redirecting categories of disputes.
There is a practical gap. As of mid-2026, the National Sports Arbitration Panels the Act mandates are not yet operational. CAS remains available for international-level appeals, and FUFA’s internal bodies, including its Ethics and Disciplinary Committee, Appeals Committee, and Dispute Resolution Chamber, continue to handle football matters. The National Sports Regulations, 2025, published in the Uganda Gazette on March 14, 2025, replaced the 2014 regulations and set out registration requirements, governance standards for federations, and certification rules for sports agents, but the arbitration machinery itself still awaits implementation.
Player Contract and Employment Claims
Athletes in Uganda are treated as professional employees under the Employment Act and are entitled to the same statutory protections as other workers, including protection against discrimination. Clubs are generally required to register player contracts with the relevant federation for those contracts to be enforceable.
The FUFA Dispute Resolution Committee has ruled for players where clubs have breached their obligations. In Ineah Joel v. Bright Stars Football Club, the committee found a contractual breach and ordered compensation. Uganda has no formal collective bargaining arrangements or salary caps in professional sport, though efforts to form a players’ union are underway. The National Sports Act defines “commercial rights” to include image, media, and sponsorship rights and states that an athlete’s commercial rights cannot be used without consent. Federations can still set roster rules of their own; FUFA, for example, limits clubs to five non-national players.