With only a few days in camp preparing for Commonwealth Games slated for July 2022 in Birmingham England, Uganda’s National Senior Netball team, She Cranes got a financial boost from Paint manufacturing company, Plascon
The paint company has announced a sponsorship package to aid in the preparation for the Commonwealth games and other activities this year worth Seventy million shillings (Shs70,0000,000), on Wednesday at the federation offices in Old Kampala.
The team is currently preparing for a nationwide tour so it has received Shs50 milion in cash while the remainder will be invested in marketing and branding the sport to extend both its appeal and reach with the goal of attracting other corporate sponsors.
While addressing the press, the Plascon Managing Director Santosh Gumte noted that unlike other sponsorships, the partnership with Netball is a platform to specifically empower women in sports.
“We cannot discuss gender equality without it being extended to sports and given as much attention especially in terms of allocation of funds. We understand that there are other aspects that need to fall in place such as structures to ensure a consistent conveyor belt of talent coming through and breaking social barriers that may still be reluctant to embrace the girl child taking on a career in sports, but we must start somewhere,” said Mr. Gumte.
He added that; “This is still a small token, but we purpose to increase on this next year when renewing our commitment with the federation. We believe with more consistent investment in women sports we shall augment the government efforts to uplift and promote gender equality in this country.”
The Netball Federation President, Babirye Sarah Kityo noted that the federation is ready to give deserved.
“We are grateful that we got another partner on Board, we thank plascon for trusting us and picking on the little they have and to share with us, Netball wasn’t in their financial year budget but they tried and put us somewhere. We promise to them that we are going to give them enough visibility they deserve,” said the UNF President.
Plason is the second partner, Uganda Netball is acquiring in space of four months since the new executive come to power mid last year. The first partner on board was GoTV whose package was Shs81 million.
The sponsorship will mainly be channelled towards the upcoming Commonwealth Games, the World Cup qualifiers in Birmingham and South Africa respectively, among others.
