She was so obsessed with Serena Williams that when the American tennis legend was pregnant, she started feeling pregnant too. Her admiration didn’t stop there — it extended just as passionately to Cristiano Ronaldo, whose drive, dominance and swagger she had followed religiously for years.
So when she finally had a child of her own, she named him Serenold — a name that binds her love for the two sports icons.
This curious cocktail of passion and devotion, both to her sporting heroes and her own life’s path, says a lot about Phiona Namiiro, better known in local sports journalism circles as Fifi Pinky.
From the noisy sidelines of Wankulukuku to the sleek set of NBS Sports, Fifi carries a voice louder than you would imagine and a passion that refuses to be boxed by team colours or industry politics.
She has become a recognisable face and fierce voice in Uganda’s male-dominated sports media landscape — a space that has tried to sideline her, exploit her, and silence her, but never succeeded.
The love story with sport did not begin in a studio. It began with her mother, the late Sarah Keziah Naomi Nanfuka, a woman who backed Express and the now-defunct Buikwe Red Stars, not just with chants but with the little money she had.
“I loved her passion,” Fifi says, “and the fact that she used the little she had to finance these clubs.”
It’s no surprise, then, that Fifi grew up a Red — a loyal Express fan through and through. But not even club allegiance could stop her from taking up a job in marketing under Ben Misagga, one of the big names at SC Villa, Express’s archrivals.
It was, and still is, a relationship that has raised eyebrows and stirred whispers.
“I told him the truth,” she says of Misagga. “That I am a Red but could work in marketing, which is my profession. I marketed Villa — songs by artistes, ambassadors and all.”
The association led to inevitable accusations of betrayal, but Fifi is firm. “I worked and still work for Misagga as a person, not Villa as a club. My name has never appeared anywhere as a Villa official.”
She does not deny the friendship is close — close enough for ‘rumour mongers’, as President Museveni once called Uganda’s gossipers, to speculate about a romantic angle. Fifi brushes it off with the ease of someone who has heard it all before.
“Ben is a married man. I am also committed somewhere. All our family members know one another. The same rumour managers once alleged that Ben was romantically involved with my besto, Desire Luzinda. Aren’t they tired?”
But long before media politics and rumour mill fatigue, Fifi was a schoolgirl on a volleyball court. Later, she would also play netball and table tennis.
“Each of these taught me something,” she says. “From table tennis, I learnt accuracy — that if you don’t balance life, you’ll get it wrong. Always seek the right remedy.”
After high school, she studied Business Administration at Makerere University Business School and later journalism at UMCAT. Her first steps into the media came as an intern at Capital FM in 2010.
She admired senior figures in the field like Aldrine Nsubuga but it was her mother, and global sports stars like Serena Williams and Cristiano Ronaldo, who truly inspired her.
“I was so obsessed with Serena that when rumours spread she was pregnant, I felt pregnant too,” she laughs.
Ronaldo, or CR7 as she calls him, holds a special place in her heart. “I detest Man United because Ten Hag disrespected him. They can even be relegated and I’d throw a party.”
This allegiance to Ronaldo might clash with her Liverpool fandom, but Fifi doesn’t pretend to follow logic in football. “Currently unbothered,” she said then, after another Liverpool heartbreak last season. “They’ve broken our hearts like they always do.”
But that has changed under Arne Slot, who took the English Premier League title at the first time of asking to help Liverpool match rivals Manchester United on 20 league crowns.
Professionally, her best moment came during the 2023 FIFA World Cup final analysis — never mind that Ronaldo’s nemesis, Messi, walked away with the trophy. But her worst moment was not on a pitch or set.
“I was suspended from work on 27 March 2023 for hosting a guest who called out a federation president,” she recounts. “The federation president used one of his friends to threaten my former employers, who in turn suspended me.”
It was one of many painful blows. In the early days of her career, she remembers a male colleague who pretended her fader (microphone) was on, yet it had been switched off.
Nothing she said was broadcast. Another time, a head of sports at a major media house blocked a big gig by falsely claiming she was already contracted elsewhere.
“That guy was just envious,” she says.
Then there were the ones who wanted more than professional collaboration. “Fellow journalists who wanted to forge relationships I declined began badmouthing me and are the people behind the Misagga rumour.”
There’s also the chilling moment a federation official allegedly threatened to kill her over her candid commentary. But she didn’t quit.
Instead, she turned up the volume.
“People in this industry are bad,” she says matter-of-factly. “If you don’t come off as serious, they’ll walk all over you. I know I have the facts, and my toughness cements authority.”
"One of the other things I detest are the people I nurtured but come out as ungrateful wretches and have set up fake accounts on social media to spread ill about me."
Away from the cameras, she’s a mother of one biological son — Serenold, a budding footballer and captain of Proline U7 team — and caretaker to several other children whose parents passed or are simply absent.
“It’s very tasking and costly but a person with a dream has to start somewhere,” she says of Serenold’s early exposure to both sports academy life and formal schooling.
Fifi grew up in Buikwe and Mukono. Her father, John Baptist Kizito, is a fisherman turned farmer in Kiyindi.
“I don’t know how many siblings I have on my father’s side — I lost count at 47,” she says. “But my late mum had six of us. I’m the third: Aisha, Prossy, me, Jane, Simon — the only boy — and Ketra.”
Today, Fifi is one of the few women holding ground in Ugandan sports media, and she does so on multiple fronts.
At NBS Sports, she hosts the Lunchtime Sports show from 1 to 3pm and Endiba Yaffe from 6:30pm to 7:30pm, Monday through Friday.
"Then Thursday I do Emboozi Teba Nkadde that replaced the Bench where I interview the legends and on Saturday, I host the English Premier League show as we air one match," she says.
"Once in a while, I chip in to do sports update on Next Radio and Sanyuka TV."
Still, she remains deeply critical of the system she works in. “Ugandan sports is full of evil people — hypocrites and wannabees who think only of themselves. Fellow journalists would rather see their own drown than call out the tormentors who give them cheap handouts like tickets to away games.”
Her frustration is broader than her own scars. She accuses Fufa and the UPL board of lacking independence and vision.
“If the UPL was truly independent, clubs would die a little for their own set-up. But many chairmen are reluctant in fear of ‘above’.”
As for Uganda’s plans to co-host the 2027 Afcon, Fifi is not holding her breath.
“It’s 80 percent government input and will require honest individuals on those committees. Without that, there’ll be setbacks,” she said of this interview done in April 2024.
Fifi has dreams beyond the screen — “A lot I’d like to do for Ugandan sport,” she says — but admits the current environment is stifling. “I can resort to farming. As God leads the way.”
She smiles often when she talks. But listen long enough and you hear the weariness underneath. The industry has tried to twist her into shapes that don’t fit. Instead, she has carved her own — red at heart, tough on air, and for many young girls watching from the wings, impossible to ignore.
But one thing is for sure, the Fifi who looks shy at first glance is a voice of 10 tough men in the studio - unafraid and undaunted.