The training of the local Indomitable Lions planned from 6 to 10 March in Yaoundé, at the initiative of the coach David Pagou, should be a simple review of the squad of the Cameroonian championship. Thirty players were invited, coming from the national elite and youth categories, including two U17 Central African champions just crowned at UNIFFAC: Essinguila Georges, designated best defender of the tournament, and Roney Baliag, elected best player. But the total absence of representatives from Colombe Sportive du Sud, reigning champion of Cameroon, quickly shifts the debate from the field to the institutional offices.
Sports and financial disputes
In an ordinary context, a non-convocation would be a matter of sports choice. Except that the recent news around Colombe feeds the questions. On 26 February, during the Champions Trophy against the Panthère du Ndé, the club’s players left the pitch in the 67th minute to protest against a penalty awarded to the opponent, without finishing the match.
The incident, which occurred at the military stadium in Yaoundé, led the referee to end the match without awarding the trophy. Beyond gambling, the episode took place a few days after public statements by the president of the club’s board of directors, denouncing nearly 200 million CFA francs in unpaid debts attributed to the Cameroonian Football Federation (Fécafoot).
Blacklisted Colombe players?
For the supporters of the president of the federation, Samuel Eto'o, there is however no correlation between these events and the list published by the coach. «We must end the trials of intention. A convocation is not an investiture," argues RSI, a media outlet headed by a member of the Fécafoot Executive Committee. According to this line of defense, the list remains "a work tool adjustable based on sporting and disciplinary requirements", and the national selection cannot be equated with an automatic reward for a champion club.
" After the antiplay episode at the Champions Trophy, keeping in the group of players associated with a refusal to continue an official match would have sent a disastrous signal: that of a tolerance with variable geometry".
Believing that selection must embody "respect for the rules, on the field as well as in attitude".
These same supporters also sweep away references to past statements by Samuel Eto'o, particularly when he had analyzed the Senegalese reaction during the final of the last African Cup of Nations in Morocco. " Understanding a context has never meant legitimizing an act", insists one of them. For him, the invitation depends exclusively on technical and disciplinary criteria, in an environment where national selection engages the country’s image and cannot yield "neither to status nor to media pressure".
«At Colombe, the players took it badly»
On Colombe’s side, the speech is more nuanced but suspicion. Contacted by Sport News Africa, a club executive, under cover of anonymity, claims to respect "the decision of the coach", while estimating that "there is necessarily a link with the release of their PCA evoking the debts owed by Fecafoot to La Colombe. And especially the events that took place during the Champions Trophy match. Colombe’s players pay the price for these events.
Our source finds it 'unfortunate' that the national coach is organizing a training camp reserved for local players without one of the champions from Cameroon.
«It doesn’t make sense and there is no objective explanation for it. It’s a pure and simple setting scores».
According to his confidences, the non-selection of any player from the Colombe du Sud is not far from damaging the morale of Richard Towa’s men. "The players experience it badly, he said. It’s a feeling of disappointment. But they also know that since the unpacking of the PCA, the season will not be easy for them. Between a technical decision taken by the coach and suspicions of institutional repercussions, the controversy above all reveals the fractures in Cameroonian football where sporting, financial and symbolic stakes are closely intertwined, at the risk of overshadowing the essential: the game.
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À propos de l'auteur
Philemon MBALE
Rédacteur sportif
Passionné de sport depuis toujours, partage avec vous les dernières actualités et analyses du monde sportif.