In the precocious wake of this week, the hierarchy at Arua Hill, through the leadership of club chairman Joel Ayita summoned their now former head coach Hussein Mbalangu alongside his entire technical team for a disciplinary hearing at the club headquarters.
The case to answer to by Mbalangu and his team was their unforeseen petition to the FUFA Dispute Resolution Chamber that was aimed at soliciting for compensation by the club for breach of the entire technical team’s contracts.
This breach that the former Kongolo gaffer unadulteratedly refers to, manifested itself a fortnight ago when the club administration unveiled Charles Livingstone Mbabazi as the new head coach at the club, asking Mbalangu to play an assistant role. An offer that he turned down.
This fascinating series has yet again taken a different direction this afternoon following a response letter to the club summon by Mr. Hussein. The letter is not only mind opening but also exposes the challenges beneath the entire process of getting them to relax.
He brands the summon as laughable and ultimately inconsequential, a verdict he came to make basing on the telephone conversations between himself and the chairman, a letter to the chairman that was sent through social media application Whatsapp, and the fact this same issue was already before the FUFA Dispute Resolution Chamber.
Mbalangu and his technical team have turned down the summon from the management at Arua Hill on the following grounds.
The fact that they are no longer employees at the West Nile club, something he reckons as being said by the club chairman during a telephone conversation between the two.
This was subsequently coupled with recruitment of new players that his technical team and himself neither sanctioned nor knew about. He would further talk about his unwillingness to work with players that he didn’t plan for.
The climax of this disrespect according to him was the club confirming the acquisition of Mbabazi as the new head coach and asking him to deputize. This tantamounted to a breach of contract and was always going to be rejected by himself and the entire team.
The fact that they have already engaged the federation through the FUFA Dispute Resolution Chamber to have the club work on the compensation following contract breach is already huge enough.
He would interestingly highlight that the deliberate actions by management to back-date their letters for disciplinary summons as per dates of reception on email, tantamounts to forgery and easily comes off as prosecutable since it violates football ethics and rules.
It was at this juncture that he asked the club chairman and his team to trade carefully when approaching these particular issues.
What is clear is that Mbalangu and his technical team want compensation from the club for what they term to be contract breach. There is however still uncertainty about who the next head coach of the club will be following FUFA’s decision to have Mbabazi commit to the national team assistant role. We could see a rebound of Mbalangu so watch the space.
