As Uganda left the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Scotland without a boxing medals in what is a rare occurrence, one of the boxers – Aziz Ringo attributed his failure to “poor and biased” officiating.
The Idi Amin grandson was disqualified for head butt against English opponent Damar Thomas in third round – a move he called unfair.
“Of course, it’s unfair. When you watch the previous fights of England, their boxers create a lot of fouls and it passes, but Africans get biased officiating against these people,” he told reporters in the missed zone.
However, Commonwealth Games chief Donald Rukare – also Ugandan, disagreed with the claims of racism made by the 25-year-old, saying that that every athlete is treated fairly in a non-discriminatory manner.
In what looks like a similar ordeal, former Ugandan boxing star Mike Ssekabembe believes that he would have won golf had it not been biased officials.
Ssekabembe won a bronze medal for Uganda at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.
He won the medal in the super-heavyweight category, and no Ugandan athlete has since won another medal in this weight category at the Games.
He says that in order to achieve success, he had determination and a clear personal goal.
The UPDF boxer says the judges robbed him of the chance to win a gold medal and eliminated him from the competition at the semi-final stage.
“All the odds favored me. I was at my best and had already beaten the best. Ahead of the semifinals during the medical check-up, a, English medical person squeezed my hand and when I reacted he ruled me injured. This was intentional because the semi-final opponent was Joyce Josephan, an English. I carry this disappointment till now – those guys are very unfair,” he revealed.
Ssekabembe is a coach of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) team and his sone, Wasswa Jonathan is a boxer in the Uganda champions league.
Apart from Ssekabembe, Uganda has won two bronze medals in boxing at the Commonwealth Games: Juma Miiro in 2018 and Teddy Nakimuli, who became the first Ugandan woman to win a boxing medal at the Games.
Uganda has won 58 medals in total at the Commonwealth Games. Boxing has won 34 of these medals, while athletics follows with 23 with 3×3 basketball and para-swimming bring the other two.
