If it turns our to be true that league champions, APR want to bring back [their former players] Jimmy Mulisa and Olivier Karekezi, then their supporters should get ready for more mediocrity in the season(s) to come.

Why on earth would APR as a team and club or the coach himself want to re-sign the duo? What value do they add to the team?

Are they the type of players APR want to move forward? Or they’re being targeted for sentimental reason than tactical?

Don’t tell me history, and if I were APR financier, I would be hard-pressed to sanction funds to the likes of Karekezi, Bokota, Mulisa, Bokungu Ndjori and Bobo Bola.

All these players I have mentioned have played for the club before and we all know what they’re capable of and what they’re not in terms of playing ability and their off-field behaviors, so would the club be making any progress by bringing back all of any of these players?

APR is a highly respected club on the continent, mainly not for superior playing ability but especially for their relatively sound and steady financial standing, which gives it the potential to do a lot more than it’s been doing in the last couple of years.

With the sort of finances available to them [don’t ask me its source(s)], APR has the potential to be one of Africa’s top clubs, or at least they should have such ambitious.  But if the club continues repeating the same mistakes every now and again, then you have to feel sorry for their fans.

Because of the potential that APR seemingly have to become a better club and maybe even start dreaming of competing with the big boys on the continent for major trophies, their fans expect a lot every news season for only to end up with the same story, mediocrity.

By handing new contacts to key players such as Jean Baptiste Mugiraneza, Albert Ngabo, Jean Claude Ndoli, Jean Luc Ndayishimiye, all senior Rwandan internationals and Malawi international Tchimanga Mutamba as well as squad players like Hegman Ngoma and Landry Logba, the club showed a sign of real intent.

And to add Ugandan international winger Dan Wagaluka to the squad, one can see the club taking the right direction, which direction should be continued, not by re-signing Karekezi, Bokungu, Mulisa, Bobo Bolla but by going for young players with hungry to succeed.

With due respect to Karekezi, Mulisa, Bobo Bolla, Bokota, Bukungu, APR should be targeting younger and ambitious players, who have their best years ahead of them, players who still have a lot to play for.

With Haruna Niyonzima joining the newly crowned Cecafa/Kagame Cup champions, Yanga Africans of Tanzanian, Wagaluka’s signing makes a lot of sense and I hope it works well for both parties.

Wagaluka, still only 25 but with a lot of international experience playing for the Uganda Cranes, Villa, Yanga and URA, the military side have signed a player they should have signed four or five years ago because that’s when the club openly expressed interest in him but for whatever reason(s), they didn’t sign him.

It’s hard to know whether indeed the coach Ernie Brandts is involved in player recruitment as I highly doubt he would endorse the signing of ex-players, who he knows very little if not noting all, players who should be thinking of retiring.

But at the end of the day, it’s that time of the year when speculations and rumors about players’ transfers are filling the back pages of newspapers, and I hope there’s nothing in Karekezi, Mulisa, Bokungu and Bobo Bolla coming back to APR.
 
nku78@yahoo.com