It looked more of a myth than a reality and some fans thought it was a campaigning gimmick when Emmanuel Ben Misagga, while seeking office as SC Villa's National Fans Coordinator, said he was planning to make the club self sustaining through commercial agriculture.

TRUE GROWTH: Misagga shows fans around the vast farm. Photos by Godfrey Seruyange

Since Misagga's idea was a fresh, some people retorted that it is easier said than done.

But as Jesus did with the doubting Thomas, Sunday December 18 Misagga proved to his doubters and critics that he lives by his word.

He took over forty of them to tour the 80-acre SC Villa fans project at which they practice commercial agriculture in a bid to supplement the club's finances.

The enthusiastic fans who wanted to be witnesses of Misagga's work left the much renowned Golden Table Bar, associated with the club, and in their company were journalists from various media houses and in less than two hours, they had reached Kayunga, the place where the farm is located two miles from Mityana town.

On arrival, everyone seemed amazed by the scenery of the greenness of the hill that had been covered by a 35-acre maize plantation.

"It's unbelievable! It's real! Thanks engineer, it's good work done," were the words from the overwhelmed fans who soon took a walk around the farm guided by workers on the farm, Misagga himself and the fans club executive members who were given responsibility to oversee the work being done and these were Seregious Katongole, Moses Musasizi and Badru Katende.

The panel told the details of the soon-to-be successful exploits by Uganda's most successful football club.

The project
Misagga revealed that getting the land good enough for the project was a task not easy. "We needed a place with favourable soils and one that is not far away from the town for better accessibility of the market. We walked places looking for that land which would enable the expansion of our project as time goes on.

"We have so far cultivated over 40 acres on the 80-acre land we leased for 10 years at Shs 1.5 million per year. We hope to cultivate on all the 80 acres the coming season."

The idea
Misagga revealed that the reason why he came up to take over the fans coordinators seat at Villa was to put in practice the ideas he always thought would propel the club forward.
"During my campaigns a year ago, I told people that there were other way making clubs self-reliant other than depending on gate collections and donations," he told the people who had been amazed by the good work done.

Funding
Over Shs 20m has so far been spent on the project, which has been bankrolled by a number of companies and individuals who include Allied Bank, Club, and individuals who have come on board to help it succeed.

"Allied Bank are organising to come here soon for a visit to see how far we have gone and how much more sponsorship is needed," Misagga said.

Maize and rice scheme
Of the 40 acres of the cultivated land, 35 have been used to grow maize and the other 5 for rice. That is only for the national fans project, but there are 10 other acres of rice cultivated by the Villa fans of the Mityana branch.

Expansion
Misagga says that his vision is to start up such projects wherever they have a branch. "We are going to open up more branches and each club will have such a project to supplement the club funds and to help take football to even the remote parts of the country.

"Villa has fans all over the country who do not attend the games but can help the club in other ways like labouring on the farms.

"We can also have the workers on each farm training every evening and it will also be another chance of spotting talent," Misagga said.
He said there is also another similar project in Luwero.

Market
The club will supply the produce to the World Food Programme (WFP) which gave them a tender to supply 5,000 tones of maize and rice, three weeks from now. Misagga told fans that Villa will start supplying WFP on January 15 while the contract will be officially signed in February.

Profits
The project is Misagga's brainchild and he said that they hoped to get over Shs 60m from the first harvests this season, which is soon. "We expect an outcome of about Shs 60 million from this season's harvest. It's less because we never had good timing of the season but we hope to be timely next season and more profits will be realised," he explained.

Benefits to the club
Misagga revealed that 50% of the profits from the harvest will be forwarded to the top executive to help in supplementing the club budget.

"This percentage will help in buying of good new players, paying players' allowances, match bonuses among other things and the money from the gate collections will just come in as surplus to the budget."