Can Police offer its fans something to smile about next season?

When the inevitable happens to finally become the fact, change is necessary! Police F.C had all the right reasons to sack coach Goran Kopunovic following yet another anti-climax season which saw Rayon Sports win the league and Police finish second for a third season in row.The club’s performance was bitter sweet for its fans and the management decided to replace Goran with Ugandan born Sam Ssimbwa as the head coach. For Goran, the simple truth was easy to understand, after failing to win the league in three years, in the anti-climax that saw him finish 2nd; his efforts simply weren’t good enough for the club.Police were eliminated from Peace Cup in the first round and failed to go past the preliminary round of the CAF Confederation Cup on their debut appearance. All this happened, just after the vicious budget was out, the Policemen decided to make potential strategic changes in the administration, meaning they might offer the fans something to smile about next season! Yet on the other side, opponents like Kiyovu can’t even break a bank for once to pay players salaries nor understand that winning is a win-win situation both on the field and in the bank. Can they actually be competitors next season? Surely not with the squad that we saw last season.The marriage of convenience with Col [rtd] Louis Dodo as president is fundamental change at Police FC given his experience with Rayon Sports and Atraco F.C. His reign at Atraco saw the taxi-men team win the national league in 2008 as well as the Cecafa/Kagame Club Championship and Peace Cup in 2009. Though during his leadership, the club faced some challenges like lack of visionary, turning the club professional, failure to focus on youth players and the financial crisis caused by spending lots of dollars on players from neighbouring Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo without any returns on investment. Honestly, there are hard lessons for Dodo to learn in this new role and for the fans and critics alike; whatever he does next season would be critically scrutinised. In his first remarks, Dodo expressed how the club is in good shape, what remains to be done will be a few touches and more effort. I really believe shortcomings can be solved both on the training pitch and in the transfer market and I hope the good Afande shares that view.Truly, Dodo’s matrimony with Sam Ssimbwa is explicable. Commonly known as “Mourinho” to local fans, Ssimbwa guided Atraco to the 1st round of the Confederation Cup in 2006/07; Of-course his presence means, Police will be eyeing the title next season. Having him at Police, Frenchman Didier Gomez da Rosa at Rayon Sports and German Andreas Spier will make the league more exciting. No doubt, fans can’t wait to feel the heat when the curtain falls off next season. Whether Police can actually be competitive next season that will depend on whether management storms the transfer window to invest in a more impressive side, and let me hope they do, otherwise teams like APR, and Rayon will have something to say about the destiny of the league and Peace Cup titles. Police’s final straw for the season went downhill after drawing with the champ’s Rayon 1-1 and to 0-0 draw by Lowly-rated Muhanga at Kicuriko.In an exclusive interview with this paper, Dodo shared his secretes of life when he said “happiness comes when records of work from different offices show positive results”. Let us, hope as the new Police. F.C president, results come his way for him to offer fans something to smile about next season.