The Leopards of the DRC did not gather for their international break in March. Financial reasons were put forward to justify the cancellation of the training camp due to take place in Turkey.
The Leopards of the DRC will not be playing any friendly matches during the international break in March. Their training camp, initially scheduled for Turkey, has been cancelled. Sabin Machini, a member of FECOFA's Normalisation Committee in charge of the national teams, explained that this was due to a lack of financial resources. "We're in an exceptional transitional period where no minister has the authority to decide on a procedure in the spending chain to get the money out the door. All these ingredients have combined to delay the processing of all the files," he said.
From the Ministry of Sport's point of view, the late introduction of the financial schedule drawn up by FECOFA was cited. But also, a real cash flow tension."For some time now, we've been asking for the various files to be submitted 3 months in advance, so that the disbursement procedure can take its normal course. But the FECOFA file was submitted almost three weeks before the initial date of the course. It's also true that there was a financial problem. After all, there were the All-Africa Games, in which 16 sporting disciplines took part. We couldn't sacrifice all those athletes just for soccer", said our source at the Ministry of Sport.
Stopping short of the World Cup qualifiers?
For many sports analysts, the lack of a training camp in March marks a major setback for the Leopards, who were hoping to string together a series of friendly matches after their successful AFCON in Côte d'Ivoire, where they reached the last four of the competition. Above all, the training camp was intended to enable coach Sébastien Desabre to fine-tune his team ahead of the next two rounds of World Cup 2026 qualifiers in June against Senegal and Togo. Both teams have the opportunity to play two friendly matches during this break. A number of new players, most of them dual nationals, were due to be called up for the first time, such as Axel Tuanzebe, who had just confirmed his choice to represent the DRC.
Questioned on the subject, Samuel Moutussamy, for his part, indicated that he would be taking some time off. "They know what's best for us, and it's up to us to follow and do what's necessary. It's not necessarily a stop for us. Sometimes it's also good to rest a bit and enjoy the family during the break. Personally, I've been going through all the international breaks for a while now, where we're away every time, so it's a bit tiring," he told Canal Plus's Talent d'Afrique program.
This opinion of the Nantes midfielder (Ligue 1 France) is not at all shared by several Congolese sports analysts such as Richard Mukendi, who believes that the cancellation of this training camp is not a good thing for the Leopards. "Cancelling this training camp is in no way a good thing for the Leopards. And it could be detrimental for the next two days of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers, with a tough match in Dakar against the great Senegal. During the last African Cup of Nations, we noticed that there were still adjustments to be made in certain areas of the DRC team, and this truce was supposed to serve that purpose. Unfortunately, our authorities didn't see it that way. And FECOFA didn't take the initiative on this one, since it had to manage to organize this training camp, especially with the money received from the last AFCON. Even if it was to be cashed in late, it could have contracted debts to pay later. It's really a missed opportunity for the Leopards to get ready before they meet Senegal and Togo, who have played some good matches during this break," he says.
After the AFCON, the Leopards will now go 4 months without playing a single match before facing Senegal and Togo between June 3 and 11.
