The federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) devised a plan that would see the Uganda Cranes fly to Ouogadougou in Burkinafaso and then back to Kampala comfortably and with the utmost ease

The Cranes had two games against Burkinafaso and Malawi, four days apart of each other. With the Cranes having to travel over 5000 miles in between those games.

FUFA chartered a Uganda Airlines flight that would transport the players to and back.

The Cranes played Burkina Faso on Wednesday night and quickly embarked on their journey back to Kampala ahead of the Malawi game which comes exactly after 366 days since they last played infront of their own fans.

As the Cranes arrived at the Entebbe International Airport on Thursday morning, there were two notable absentees from the team that featured in Burkinafaso.

Winger Abdul Lumala and Alexis Bakka did not make the return journey to Kampala, despite both featuring against Burkinafaso. Lumala played the entire 90 minutes, while Bakka came on as a 90th minute substitute.

Question marks were raised about the whereabouts of the pair and whether their absence from the returning contigent rules them out of the Malawi game.

According to local sports website https://www.sports256.com, the duo left Uganda for Sweden around 2012, under the Kampala Junior team(KJT) program, and have lived in the Scandinavia nations since.

When the players traveled to Sweden, they went AWOL and sought asylum from the Swedish Authorities.

They were granted asylum in the country but were given an initial period after which they were to be given citizenship.

Why are they able to travel for Cranes games away from Kampala?

The process of granting asylum in Sweden takes six months to one year after which the successful applicants are issued with a residence permit, which can be renewed over time.

The duo were granted asylum in Sweden and have since lived as asylum seekers in the country.

The permit allows you to access other nations but not your country of origin until atleast the reason as to why you sought asylum is rectified.

“Lumala an Bakka were missing certain documents that allow them to travel back to Uganda”, Fufa’s head of communications Ahmed Hussein said when hosted during a radio show on Thursday night.

“As a federation, we were not aware of this and the time to the game can not allow us to process the relevant documents”, Hussein added.

After a period of five years, asylum seekers qualify to apply for citizenship and that gives them access to any country all over the world.

Lumala and Bakka are close to finalising the process of getting Swedish Citizenship and according to our source, by early next year, they will have finalized the process and will, therefore be able to fly back home.

For now, though the pair can only represent Uganda in games outside it’s boarders. In the absence of Lumala and Bakka, Kazakhstan based William Kizito Luwagga and Vipers sports club forward Bayo Fahad may be called upon to fill the void respectively.