UPL’s Player of the Match ban is a step backward for club football

Opinion | UPL may control its official matchday award, but that should not mean clubs lose the freedom to recognise their own outstanding players

The Uganda Premier League Secretariat has opened a much wider debate about club autonomy, commercial rights and the future direction of football business in Uganda with its latest clarification on the Man of the Match award. Following the expiry of the partnership previously attached to the property, the Secretariat has now made its position explicit: clubs are expected to refrain from organising, branding, presenting or commercially associating any Man of the Match or Player of the Match award during an official UPL matchday unless specifically authorised by the Secretariat.

The stated intention is to protect what the league describes as its centrally controlled commercial rights as it develops and packages its official matchday awards for prospective commercial partners. While the league has a legitimate responsibility to protect genuine commercial rights, the decision raises a much bigger question about whether that responsibility should extend to stopping clubs from independently recognising their own players.

There is certainly a legitimate commercial principle behind protecting an official league property. If the UPL has entered into agreements that grant exclusive rights over particular branding, sponsorship categories, presentations or commercial activations, those agreements should be respected. A professional league must be able to protect the value of the assets it sells to commercial partners, otherwise there would be little incentive for companies to invest in those properties.

However, protecting an official UPL award is not necessarily the same thing as controlling every form of player recognition conducted by a club on a UPL matchday. The distinction between an official UPL Player of the Match and a club’s independently managed Player of the Match is therefore crucial, and the Secretariat’s communication does not sufficiently explain why those two activities must automatically be treated as one and the same commercial property.

That is where the current directive deserves closer scrutiny. A league can legitimately say that clubs cannot use its official branding, cannot present an award as though it were the official UPL award, cannot exploit an exclusive league sponsorship and cannot create confusion among supporters or commercial partners.

Those restrictions would be understandable and relatively easy for clubs to follow. But preventing a club from simply identifying and celebrating the player it considers to have delivered the best performance in one of its matches is a much broader intervention. The central question is not whether UPL should protect its commercial property; it is whether protecting that property requires the league to prevent clubs from creating their own clearly differentiated properties.

What exactly does the league control?

The Secretariat’s statement that “all official matchday award properties” are centrally controlled raises an important question about the precise scope of that control. The word “official” appears to suggest that the league is referring to awards that are formally recognised and packaged as UPL properties, but the directive then goes further by instructing clubs to refrain from organising, branding or presenting any Man of the Match or Player of the Match award unless specifically authorised. That wording potentially moves beyond protecting an official league award and into controlling the broader activity of player recognition itself. The difference may appear technical, but it has significant consequences for clubs trying to develop their own commercial identities.

For example, if a club uses its own logo, produces its own placard, selects its own player and does not use UPL branding, what precisely makes that activity an official UPL commercial property? If the club does not claim that the award is sponsored by or endorsed by the league, and if it does not use a protected league sponsor’s branding, the Secretariat should be able to explain exactly what commercial right has been infringed. The communication makes the assertion of central control very clear, but it does not provide the same clarity about the boundaries of that control. Good commercial governance requires not only authority but also clearly defined limits on that authority.

There is a fundamental difference between saying “clubs may not present the official UPL Player of the Match award” and saying “clubs may not present any Player of the Match award.” The first protects a clearly defined league property, while the second potentially restricts an activity that clubs can reasonably regard as part of their own supporter engagement and brand management. If the Secretariat wants to protect its commercial property, the strongest approach would be to define precisely which name, branding, sponsor categories, presentation rights and commercial activations belong exclusively to the UPL. That would give clubs the certainty they need to develop their own initiatives without crossing the league’s legitimate commercial boundaries.

The sponsorship may have expired, but the football tradition has not

The expiry of a sponsorship agreement should not automatically mean the death of the underlying football tradition. A sponsor attaches its name and commercial resources to a property because the property already has sporting and audience value. The sponsor may own particular branding and activation rights under an agreement, but the broader concept of recognising the outstanding performer in a football match existed long before any particular commercial partner became involved. Football has always found ways of celebrating the player whose performance stood above the rest, whether through formal awards, media recognition, supporter votes or club presentations.

The distinction matters because the Man of the Match culture in the Uganda Premier League had already begun to develop beyond a centrally delivered sponsorship activation. Clubs were producing their own placards, incorporating their own identities into the presentations and creating opportunities around the recognition of their players. In some cases, clubs were also exploring their own commercial relationships connected to these activities. That evolution should have been viewed as evidence that the clubs were beginning to understand the commercial potential of their own matchday environments rather than as something that automatically threatened the league.

If a sponsorship has expired, the obvious step is to remove the former sponsor’s branding and ensure that no club improperly continues using commercial rights that belonged to that sponsor. It does not necessarily follow that the entire concept of recognising a club’s best performer must disappear. The league could have drawn a clear line between the former sponsored property and independent club recognition, thereby protecting the former while allowing the latter to continue under appropriate conditions. That would have preserved commercial discipline without unnecessarily restricting club creativity.

Clubs were beginning to create their own value

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the directive is that clubs had already started taking ownership of the concept. Producing a club-branded placard, identifying the outstanding performer and presenting the award after a match requires initiative, organisation and resources. It gives the club another opportunity to communicate with its supporters and creates a small commercial property that can potentially be packaged for a local business. At a time when Ugandan football is constantly discussing the need for clubs to become financially sustainable, discouraging this kind of initiative sends a contradictory message.

A club that develops its own Player of the Match award is effectively learning how to commercialise its identity. It can approach a local company and offer it an association with excellence, performance and the club’s supporters without asking that business to fund an entire league. The arrangement does not have to be worth millions of shillings to be useful. A modest partnership can give a club experience in negotiating sponsorships, delivering visibility and demonstrating value to commercial partners, while giving a local business a relatively affordable route into football.

This is particularly important because not every business in Uganda can afford to become a major UPL sponsor. A telecommunications giant, bank or large multinational may have the resources to purchase a league-wide property, but thousands of smaller businesses may only be able to support an individual club or a specific matchday initiative. Player recognition therefore provides a potential entry point into football for businesses that would otherwise remain outside the sponsorship ecosystem. If Ugandan football wants a broader commercial base, it must create more affordable opportunities for businesses to participate rather than concentrating all commercial value at the centre.

The directive risks discouraging club innovation

The requirement that clubs must obtain specific authorisation before organising, branding, presenting or commercially associating a Player of the Match award creates another concern. Instead of giving clubs a clearly defined framework within which they can innovate, the communication effectively establishes permission from the centre as the starting point. That means a club with an idea for a new commercial property may first have to ask whether it is allowed to pursue the idea at all, rather than simply checking whether its initiative complies with clearly published league rules.

That approach can have a chilling effect on innovation. Clubs operating in an already challenging financial environment should be encouraged to experiment with small, low-cost commercial ideas. If every initiative that resembles a centrally controlled property requires individual approval, some clubs may simply decide that the administrative uncertainty is not worth the effort. Over time, that can leave clubs increasingly dependent on centrally negotiated opportunities rather than developing the entrepreneurial capacity needed to sustain themselves.

The better model would be to establish clear rules that allow clubs to understand what they can do without seeking permission every time. For example, the league could prohibit the use of UPL’s official branding, prevent clubs from presenting their awards as official league awards and restrict sponsor categories that conflict with exclusive league agreements. Within those boundaries, clubs could be free to develop their own player-recognition initiatives. That approach would protect the league while simultaneously teaching clubs how to operate professionally within a commercial framework.

The argument about “prospective commercial partners”

Another revealing part of the Secretariat’s clarification is the statement that the restriction is intended to protect the integrity and commercial value of the property as the league develops and packages its official matchday awards for “prospective commercial partners.” The phrase is significant because it suggests the league is protecting a property that it intends to take to the market in the future.

There is nothing wrong with that objective; indeed, attracting commercial partners is essential for the growth of the league. But the existence of a potential future commercial opportunity does not automatically answer the question of whether clubs should be prevented from exploiting clearly independent opportunities in the meantime.

There is a difference between protecting an existing contractual exclusivity and reserving an entire concept indefinitely because it may eventually be commercially attractive. If a future UPL sponsor wants exclusive rights over an official Player of the Match property, those rights can be defined when the sponsorship agreement is negotiated.

The league can then enforce those exclusive rights against competing properties that genuinely conflict with them. But until such a commercial arrangement exists, the league should consider whether stopping clubs from creating their own differentiated properties actually strengthens or weakens the broader football economy.

Indeed, club-level experimentation could demonstrate the commercial potential of player recognition. If several clubs can attract local partners around their own awards, generate digital engagement and demonstrate supporter interest, that evidence could eventually help the UPL negotiate an even stronger league-wide commercial package. In that sense, club innovation does not necessarily have to compete with the league’s commercial ambitions. It can provide the foundation from which the league’s broader commercial value grows.

The “Player of the Month” alternative is not equivalent

The Secretariat has suggested that clubs remain free to recognise and reward their players internally, with a recommendation that such recognition be positioned as a Club Player of the Month and presented separately from the official UPL matchday environment. While this may appear to offer clubs an alternative, it does not actually replace the function of a Player of the Match award. The two awards recognise different things and operate on different timelines, meaning that one cannot simply be substituted for the other.

A Player of the Match award recognises immediate excellence. It tells supporters that, in this particular fixture, one player stood out above everyone else. A Player of the Month award, by contrast, evaluates performances across several matches and asks a completely different question about consistency and overall contribution. A player who produces a magnificent performance in one match may not necessarily become the club’s best player over the entire month, and the absence of a monthly award does not diminish the significance of the individual performance.

More importantly, the value of the matchday award lies partly in its timing. The player has just performed, supporters are still discussing the match, journalists are preparing their reports, photographers are present and the club’s digital platforms are looking for content. The award becomes part of the story of the match itself. Moving recognition to a separate event at another time therefore removes much of the immediacy and visibility that made the Player of the Match concept useful in the first place.

They are allowing recognition while restricting its most valuable moment

The Secretariat says clubs may continue recognising players internally but insists that such awards should not be presented on the pitch, in official matchday presentation areas, interview or media zones, or other league-controlled matchday spaces in a manner that could be interpreted as an official UPL award. This creates an interesting contradiction because those are precisely the environments where the recognition has the greatest audience and commercial value. The player has just completed the performance, supporters are present, cameras are rolling and the media is already covering the fixture.

If the concern is that supporters might confuse a club award with the official UPL award, that problem can be addressed through branding and presentation guidelines. A club can clearly identify its award as a Club Player of the Match, use its own logo and avoid UPL branding or the branding of an exclusive league sponsor. The distinction can be made visible rather than forcing clubs to abandon the activity entirely.

The current approach therefore appears to solve a problem by removing the opportunity altogether. Rather than teaching clubs how to differentiate their properties from official league properties, it effectively pushes their recognition activities away from the most valuable matchday environment. That may protect the league from confusion, but it also reduces the commercial and storytelling opportunities available to the clubs.

The phrase “league-controlled matchday spaces” needs clarity

The reference to “other League-controlled matchday spaces” also deserves clarification. A professional competition should be able to identify the areas over which the league exercises direct commercial and operational control, but clubs need to know precisely where that control begins and ends. If a club has its own hospitality area, media backdrop, supporters’ section or branded space within a stadium, the regulations should clearly explain whether those areas fall within the restriction.

Ambiguity creates difficulties for everyone. A club could unintentionally breach a rule because it interpreted a space differently from the Secretariat, while the Secretariat could later regard an otherwise innocent club presentation as an attempt to circumvent its commercial rights. Clear definitions would reduce the likelihood of such disputes and create a more professional working relationship between the league and its clubs.

If UPL wants exclusive control over the pitch presentation, that can be clearly stated. If interview zones and official media areas are controlled by the league, those spaces can be defined. If certain sponsor categories are protected, they can be listed. Commercial regulation works best when stakeholders know exactly where the lines are drawn.

The fan dimension cannot be ignored

The Man of the Match culture had also developed into a useful form of fan engagement. Supporters could debate who had performed best, argue over competing performances, celebrate the eventual winner and share photographs or videos from the presentation. At some clubs, supporters were even contributing money to support or boost their preferred players in the recognition process, demonstrating that the activity had created a level of emotional participation beyond the simple presentation of a placard.

That engagement matters because modern football is no longer consumed only through the 90 minutes played on the pitch. Supporters follow clubs across social media, discuss performances in real time, watch interviews, share photographs and participate in debates about players. Every additional point of interaction helps a club build a stronger relationship with its audience, and player recognition is one of the easiest ways to turn a match performance into a continuing conversation.

The award also gives clubs a natural storytelling opportunity. A goalkeeper’s crucial saves can become a post-match feature. A defender’s disciplined display can be celebrated. A midfielder’s influence can be explained to supporters. A striker’s goals can become the centrepiece of a digital campaign. These are relatively inexpensive forms of content that can help clubs grow their audiences and make their players more recognisable.

The league should be looking for more ways to deepen supporter engagement, not inadvertently removing opportunities that clubs and fans had already embraced.

Players need recognition, especially when payments remain a challenge

There is also a human dimension to the debate that deserves serious consideration. Payments to players remain one of the major challenges facing Ugandan football, with clubs operating under financial pressure and player welfare continuing to be an important concern. In such an environment, it is important to make a clear distinction between proper remuneration and recognition: an award cannot replace a salary, settle an outstanding contract or compensate a player for financial obligations that a club has failed to meet.

Players must ultimately be paid properly and on time according to their agreements. Recognition should never be used as an excuse for poor financial management, nor should a footballer be expected to regard a placard or trophy as compensation for unpaid earnings. The broader football industry still has a responsibility to improve the financial conditions under which players work and to make clubs more financially sustainable.

But that does not make recognition meaningless. For a player, particularly a young footballer trying to establish a career, being publicly acknowledged for an outstanding performance can provide confidence, motivation and visibility. It can strengthen the player’s connection with supporters, give the club another reason to tell the player’s story and potentially contribute to building a stronger public profile.

At a time when Ugandan football needs to improve player visibility and marketability, removing one of the simplest mechanisms for celebrating individual performances appears difficult to reconcile with that objective. Proper payment and meaningful recognition are not substitutes for one another; football needs both.

The commercial opportunity is bigger than the award itself

The broader commercial argument may be the strongest reason for reconsidering the current approach. Ugandan clubs need more revenue opportunities, yet not every company has the resources to become a major league sponsor. A local restaurant, retailer, financial institution, technology company, school, insurance business or community enterprise may be interested in football but unable to commit to a large league-wide package.

Club-level Player of the Match awards provide precisely the kind of affordable commercial entry point that could bring those businesses into the football ecosystem. A company could support one club’s award, receive visibility at the match and on digital platforms, and associate its brand with excellence without having to compete for a major UPL property. The club gains a partner, the player receives recognition, the supporters receive engaging content and the business gains exposure to a defined audience.

The financial value of each individual partnership may be modest, but football economies are not built exclusively through large deals. They are also built through numerous smaller relationships that become sustainable over time. If every club develops several modest commercial properties, the combined value can become significant, while clubs gain the experience and confidence required to negotiate larger partnerships in the future.

The question should therefore not simply be how to find one bigger league sponsor. It should also be how to create hundreds of smaller opportunities through which Ugandan businesses can participate in football.

Regulation would be better than prohibition

The UPL Secretariat has every right to protect its official commercial properties, and clubs should respect legitimate league regulations. The problem is not the principle of commercial protection; it is whether the chosen method is unnecessarily broad. There is a considerable difference between protecting a defined official UPL property and preventing clubs from creating their own clearly differentiated player-recognition initiatives.

A more constructive solution would be to establish a commercial-rights framework. The UPL could reserve its official Player of the Match branding, presentation, league-wide sponsorship categories and official recognition exclusively to the league. At the same time, it could allow clubs to operate their own awards under clearly defined conditions.

The rules could prohibit clubs from using protected UPL branding, presenting their award as an official league award or entering sponsor agreements that directly conflict with exclusive league partnerships. Clubs could then be free to use their own names, their own branding and their own sponsors for independently managed recognition initiatives. Such an approach would protect the commercial value of the league while giving clubs the freedom to develop their own businesses.

That is the balance Ugandan football should be searching for: strong central commercial protection combined with meaningful club-level commercial freedom.

The league should not fear clubs creating value

At the heart of the controversy is a much bigger question about the kind of football ecosystem Uganda wants to build. A strong league is not necessarily one in which every valuable commercial idea is controlled from the centre. A strong league is one in which the central administration protects the collective competition while individual clubs are empowered to develop their own brands, commercial relationships and supporter communities.

The stronger the clubs become, the stronger the league becomes. A club that learns how to attract local sponsors, create engaging content, sell matchday properties and build supporter loyalty is ultimately contributing to the strength of the entire competition. Conversely, a league populated by clubs that remain financially dependent and commercially inexperienced will continue to face structural challenges regardless of how successful its central sponsorship programme becomes.

The Secretariat should therefore regard successful club initiatives as potential extensions of the league’s commercial ecosystem rather than automatically seeing them as threats to central authority. The league can still establish boundaries and enforce them, but within those boundaries there should be room for experimentation, entrepreneurship and club identity.

Central administration should provide direction and standards, not suffocate initiatives simply because they originated outside the league office.

This is bigger than a placard

Some may argue that the entire controversy is being exaggerated because the issue concerns little more than a placard, a handshake and a photograph. That interpretation misses the economic and cultural significance of what happens around that simple presentation. The placard is merely the visible symbol of an entire chain of football activity that connects a player’s performance to supporters, media, sponsors and the club itself.

Behind the placard is a player receiving recognition. Behind that player is a club telling a story about performance. Behind that story are supporters discussing and sharing the moment. Behind the engagement is digital content that can generate attention. Behind that attention is a potential commercial opportunity for a business. What appears to be a simple post-match ceremony can therefore become one small part of a much larger football economy.

If those opportunities are repeatedly restricted because they might overlap with future centrally controlled commercial properties, clubs may gradually lose the incentive to create new ideas. That would be particularly unfortunate in an environment where everyone agrees that Ugandan clubs need to become more commercially sophisticated and financially sustainable.

The placard itself is not the issue.

What the placard represents is the issue.

It represents player recognition, supporter engagement, club identity, media content and potential sponsorship. Removing the activity may seem insignificant in isolation, but the cumulative effect of removing small commercial opportunities can be much more substantial.

What should happen next?

The UPL Secretariat should consider engaging the clubs in developing a clear framework that separates official league commercial rights from independently managed club initiatives. Such a discussion would not require the Secretariat to surrender its authority or commercial interests. On the contrary, it would allow the league to clearly define what it owns, what it protects and what clubs are free to develop.

The league can reserve the official UPL Player of the Match award for itself. It can protect its branding and sponsorship categories. It can prohibit clubs from presenting their own awards as official UPL properties. It can control the official league presentation areas where necessary. At the same time, it can allow clubs to create clearly differentiated Club Player of the Match awards using their own branding and commercial partners, subject to reasonable regulations.

That approach would provide certainty rather than confusion. Clubs would know exactly what they can do, businesses would know what sponsorship opportunities are available, supporters would continue enjoying player-recognition moments and the league would retain control over its official commercial property.

The expiry of the previous sponsorship could therefore have been treated as an opportunity to review and improve the entire concept. Instead of simply stopping club-level activities, the UPL could have consulted clubs, examined what had already been developed and created a framework that protects future league commercial opportunities while encouraging clubs to become more commercially capable.

The verdict

The UPL Secretariat is entitled to protect its commercial interests, and clubs should respect legitimate contractual and regulatory obligations. But commercial protection should not automatically become commercial control over every form of player recognition that takes place during a UPL fixture. If the league owns an official Player of the Match property, protect it. If a sponsor has exclusive rights, honour them. If certain branding is protected, restrict its use. If sponsor conflicts exist, regulate them.

What should be avoided is the assumption that because the league controls its official award, it must therefore control every independently organised award carrying a similar description. The distinction between a UPL Player of the Match and a Club Player of the Match can be made clearly through branding, presentation and regulation. There is no reason why both cannot coexist within a properly structured commercial environment.

The clubs had already begun producing their own placards, developing their own presentation identities and exploring their own commercial relationships around player recognition. Supporters had begun engaging with the process, and at some clubs, fans were even contributing money to support or boost players they believed deserved recognition. Players were receiving appreciation, clubs were generating content and businesses were being offered relatively affordable opportunities to associate themselves with football.

That sounds less like a problem that needed to be shut down and more like an opportunity that needed to be properly regulated.

Ugandan football needs stronger clubs, more commercial entry points, more engaged supporters and better player visibility. It needs businesses of different sizes to find ways of investing in the game. It needs players to be recognised for outstanding performances while simultaneously ensuring that their fundamental financial rights are respected. Most importantly, it needs an administrative culture that understands that empowering clubs does not necessarily weaken the league; in many cases, it can make the entire competition stronger.

The UPL Secretariat therefore has an opportunity to reconsider the current position and draw a more sensible line between league-owned commercial properties and club-owned initiatives. The league can protect its official award without preventing clubs from celebrating their own players. It can protect sponsors without eliminating smaller sponsorship opportunities. It can establish standards without extinguishing innovation.

The former sponsorship may have expired, but football’s tradition of recognising outstanding performances has not. The clubs had already begun giving that tradition their own identities, supporters had begun participating in it and businesses had begun to see potential commercial value in it. That momentum should be harnessed rather than halted.

The question facing Ugandan football is ultimately bigger than whether a player can receive a placard after a match. It is about whether clubs are being encouraged to become commercially creative, financially stronger and more independent, or whether their ability to create value will increasingly depend on permission from the centre.

The league should be asking clubs what they can create, how they can contribute to the commercial growth of the competition and how their initiatives can coexist with centrally controlled properties.

It should not begin by asking what it can stop.

The sponsor may have left the property, but football has not left the pitch.

And if the intention was to protect the goalposts, there is an uncomfortable irony in the way this has been handled.

The UPL Secretariat may have scored an own goal.