Uganda national team striker Joel Madondo is stuck in a rented apartment in Casablanca and is unable to get home during the lockdown in Morocco.
The 22-year-old arrived in the North African country late in January after joining top side Wydad Casablanca on a three-and-a-half-year deal from StarTimes Premier League outfit, Busoga United.
But having only just started with the team, all football activities were suspended because of the coronavirus outbreak with the government putting the country into lockdown.
Madondo was unable to return to Uganda, so was, and remains, trapped in a country he did not know, with little money to survive.
The Cranes star has almost turned into a beggar as he has gone for months neither without pay nor without proper assistance from the club.
The talisman says that he is just surviving by baking chapattis that he feeds on with dry tea to survive in the harsh life in the Moroccan city.
“The club dumped me in the apartment for which I have to pay $1,000 (Shs3.7m) per month yet they have not paid me a salary,” Madondo said a lengthy interview with Ugandan publication Daily Monitor.
“They have only assisted me with 14,000 Moroccan Dirham (about USD 1,400) on February 20, which I used to buy flour and started making chapattis. You can’t imagine I have been eating chapattis and tea since I came so that I save the little I have.”
Madondo now wants to return home and has called for intervention from the Ugandan FA as his passport remains with the club purportedly for using to process a work permit.
“I don’t have any document on me. That is very risky here. The club manager told me if the police stop me, I just mention Wydad and nothing will happen,” he added.
Ugandan Cranes deputy manager Paul Mukatabala confirmed that the player is stuck in the North African country, but referred questions to the federation president.
“We have talked to him and briefed Moses Magogo, the FUFA boss,” soft-spoken Mukatabala said yesterday.
The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) recently announced that the country’s top leagues and tournaments will resume in mid-June.
La Botola, Morocco’s top league, was halted in mid-March after 20 rounds following positive COVID-19 cases in the country.
Wydad Casablanca was heading the league table, a point ahead of FUS Rabat at the time of the cancellation.
