Ever since local football powerhouse APR FC opted to exclusively use Rwandan players a decade back, the club witnessed mixed fortunes but failure to shine at African club football has always raised questions on the policy. It’s not all as rosy at APR as many at the club would wish the outside world to believe, Times Sport has established. Not everything that shines is gold, so goes the saying. The fans have always enjoyed the club’s domestic success but a series of failures at continental football leave them unhappy. All they want is change. Through the policy, the club gave local players a chance to shine and hence got opportunities to play professional football out of the country. But one would wonder if the policy was established with much focus on exporting talent and with less focus on success. A huge number of fans have lost confidence in the homegrown players policy since Rwandan players can’t even push the team to the group stages. They rather think bringing foreign players back to the club would help the club to turn fortunes around as long as hunger of success at continental football is concerned. The 2013/14 league season will be remembered as the season when the club ended their reliance on foreign players and vest their trust in homegrown talents, a development that was vastly inspired by the club’s desire to give exposure to Rwandan footballers. The military side has a record 20 league titles, 13 Peace Cup trophies, three Super Cup and three CECAFA Club championships in their trophy cabinet, making them arguably Rwanda’s most successful football club. However, rivals could end their dominance sooner or later should they not set standards and philosophy that help them remain at the top. Clubs like AS Kigali (2020/21) and Kiyovu (2021/22) were so close to dethroning the champions during the past two seasons and the pair is still pushing to end the military side’s domestic dominance, as they are now joint top of the table of Rwanda Premier League so far this season. Club’s arch rivals Rayon Sports are also pushing to end their three-year trophy drought and all this leaves APR feeling much pressure despite having the best football talents at their disposal. Of course the move was a significant one, especially in terms of how intentional it was. However, it was not happening for the first time that a club in the East African region was depending on local players. APR has a poor record against North African teams during continental football and have never reached the group stage since they made their debut in Africa’s competitions in 1997. APR Fc’s best campaign in Africa’s club competition was during the 2004 when they reached the third round under late coach Jean Marie Ntagwabira. They also reached the semifinals of CAF Cup Winners in 2003. The military side and its management were growing confident that the club would achieve more the following years but that, unfortunately, remains the least they could ever achieve over the years. A policy on clutches No wonder the team has failed to reach the group stages in the CAF Champions League and the Confederations Cup. The club may not have failed to maintain domestic dominance but questions and criticisms will remain as to why it keeps struggling to extend their dominance at continental football yet they have whatever it takes to succeed. In Uganda, for instance, Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) reached the group stages of the CAF Champions League in 2017-2018 by entirely using local players. Such is a good example of the fact that homegrown policies can work. However, to implement a successful home grown policy, there are a number of factors that need to be considered, among which is the need to have proper player development structures that ensure that the club nurtures top talent from its own academies. Teams like Ajax Amsterdam and FC Barcelona come fast in my mind when you think about clubs that have great academies that have brought great footballers to the international scene. Though it is a different context in terms of finances and the fact that the two teams don’t use homegrown policies, there are a couple of lessons that APR FC can learn from them. Barcelona’s La Masia Academy is regarded as the best youth football academy in the world. A number of players from the academy made debuts for Barcelona, and some of them went all the way to become the best players in the world. For APR FC, who are probably the only team implementing a homegrown solution policy in East African, they should have a strong football academy– actually the strongest in the region- to count on. Unfortunately, that is not even close. How can you say you are going to use homegrown players when you have not really invested enough into making sure that they are properly nurtured from a young age? Who is going to nurture them for you if you don’t? In addition, local teams don’t have well-structured academies, yet they are the ones supplying players to APR. It is strange to hear the club counting on players who grew up in a football league with the level that everyone knows and task them to fight for CAF club titles against Africa’s elite clubs like Egypt’s Al Ahly and Zamalek, Morocco’s Wydad and Raja, Tunisia’s Esperance, Etoile du Sahel and RS Berkane or even South Africa’s Mamelodi Sundowns and DR Congo’s TP Mazembe. There is also a debate that the players that APR FC uses are not the best ones in Rwanda, the club’s players failing to dominate the national team lineup. For a tea that used to have five or six starters in the national team, not even one APR player featured in the starting lineup of the Rwandan team that drew 1-1 against Mozambique during their AFCON 2023 qualifier held in Johannesburg, South Africa while club midfielder Jean Bosco Ruboneka started against Senegal during the same qualifiers. These are facts that make football supporters and pundits question the future of the club if the national team coach does not rely on its players anymore. In this case, there is a need to recruit a serious scouting team that will make sure that the club hires the best Rwandan talents going forward. Bring back foreign players! One would also suggest that it would not be bad to use foreign players again. It wouldn’t hurt to put a few foreign players in the team to bring qualities and experience that would help homegrown players improve their performance. This would make the team more competitive. Most of the APR’s best players became top players while playing alongside foreign players and saw their football flourish and went on to be of importance for Amavubi. The likes of Jimmy Gatete, Jimmy Mulisa, Eric Nshimiyimana, Olivier Karekezi and Fred Ntare played alongside foreign players and competing for a place against them helped them work hard to earn it. A kind reminder that APR FC last won the CECAFA Kagame Cup three times (2004, 2007, 2010), and reached the cup finals three times (1996, 2000, and 2005) while using foreign players. And ever since the club adopted the ‘only homegrown players’ policy, they only reached the finals twice (2013 and 2014). The policy has struggled to live up to expectations, prompting the club to rethink bringing back foreign players. A decade later, club chairman Lt Gen. Mubarakh Muganga hinted that they could turn on some few foreign players to add competition to the club’s push for continental silverware. The move will take effect starting with the 2023/24 season. APR FC has full potential to become a successful football franchise and a force to reckon with both domestically and at the continental scene should the club management revisit their football structure in all aspects.
