On 16th April 2025, Angels got a walkover victory against the UCU Lady Canons and this changed the course of the trajectory of the season.

The main question is,

Was this a fair decision?

What happened?

On the evening on 16th April, the Lady Canons were slated to play against Angels at Abja Park but there was an issue.

The girls were doing exams and it wouldn’t be as easy to get to the venue on time.

The exams end at around 5 and regrouping, getting everyone together and setting off would take a bit of time.

So at around 6, the Lady Canons set off for Abja but then, they face another challenge; Traffic.

The team was stuck and communication was made that they would be a bit late, but then, your lateness is an advantage for Angels.

So there was constant communication between the officials on ground and the UCU team about the way forward.

With the persistent traffic, UCU put some girls on motorcycles to get to the place and avoid giving away a walkover.

Unfortunately, they got lost on the way and by the time they arrived, the walkover had been awarded.

Was this decision fair?

According to the FIBA rules Article 20.1, A team shall lose the game by forfeit if the team is not present or is unable to field 5 players ready to play 15 minutes after the game is scheduled to start.

Based on the law, the commissioner acted within the rules to award the walkover.

However, there’s more to this.

According to the officials of UCU, they had written to FUBA weeks before requesting that the game be postponed because of the exams period.

However, no action was taken and that meant that they had to play the game despite the difficult circumstances they were in as a team.

This raised a couple of questions;

Didn’t the FUBA officials responsible get the message?

Did they receive it and forget about it or did they receive it and decide that UCU proceed with the games despite their grounds for a request to postpone.

That is where most of that conflict stems from and had the game been rescheduled, perhaps all this wouldn’t have happened.

What does that walkover mean?

This result means that UCU will lose both games against Angels.

Additionally, they will not get any points from that game.

This will affect their final standings and could be a big factor come playoff time.

The consequence of this result affects Angels most and they are the biggest beneficiary.

With just these 2 wins, they will need probably 1 more to avoid relegation drama.

Had they played both those games, the most likely chance is that they would have lost and just in the first round, they would be having a single win.

That would mean that Nkumba, despite having 0 wins, would still have a big chance of surviving relegation if things went bad for Angels in the second round.

But then, that result changes dynamics because it now puts Angels on 3 wins and Nkumba has to win very many other games to survive.

Is Angels a lucky team? Maybe they are.

You see, last year, Angels lost to Kibuli S.S. in the first round but in the second, the high school team came late and walkover win was awarded to Angels.

The round one loss was overturned and Angels ended up making a top 4 finish.

However, that walkover loss affected Kibuli to the extent that, despite having a better record than Makerere and Seeta High, the 2 teams made the playoffs ahead of them.

Some people argue that in the spirit of Fairplay, the game between UCU and Angels should have been played.

UCU did whatever it took to get there but due to circumstances that were out of their control, they never managed to make it on time.

The money and time spent to come and watch the game, let alone the fans that came to watch all went to waste.

Another argument is, had this game been a TV game, would a walkover have been awarded?

If you also think about it, had this game between say, Nkumba and Angels, would a walkover have been awarded?

Truth is any team that is in the position that Angels is in would most likely want the walkover to be awarded.

However, it makes no sense for you to prepare for a game and then refuse to play because the other team is a bit late.

One important thing to note though is, UCU Lady Canons has had a history of arriving late for games and perhaps that was a lesson for them.

Moving forward, we don’t expect them to be late because they know what is at stake and that a walkover could easily be awarded.