Cameroon's U20 football male team won gold medal at the just ended Francophonie games in the DR Congo over the weekend beating Burkina Faso 2-1. While some are busy clamoring that the glory of the success of the team must be attributed to the current FECAFOOT Executive and its President Samuel Eto'o, Barrister Mbala Fabrice, an Independent Football Analyst/Consultant decided to carry out a research a little bit away from the celebrations.
The Lawyer makes an interesting comparative study to understand exactly why Simba FC of Tanzania, were able to spend the sum of 60,000 000 Frs CFA, to buy a defender from Cotonsport of Garoua, the biggest spender of the Cameroon Professional League.
Here is what he discovered:
1. Azam TV the main broadcaster of the Tanzanian Première League matches, signed a Broadcasting Rights Contract worth 225.6 Billion Tanzania Shillings for 10 years.
2. when he visited the currency exchange website www.xe.com, and introduced this amount for it to be converted into Franc BEAC XAF, the sum of 54,030, 158,000 Central African Francs. ( 54 Billion CFA for 10 years)
3. he calculated the value of that Contract per year by spreading out the 54 Billion for 10 years, and it gave the sum of 5, 401,330,300 FCFA ( 5Billion, 400 Million).
3. he further presumed that Cameroon had a Professional League of 30 Elite Clubs. If that amount is divided to those 30 clubs, each club will receive the mouthwatering sum of
182, 000, 000 FCFA per season only from TV Broadcasting.
So as we bask in the celebration of this one-off performance from our U20 Lions at the just ended Francophonie games, let us not to lose focus about the principal responsibility of a Federation, which is to provide for all avenues possible for a better life for our homegrown talents who have chosen this profession as their vocation says Fabrice.
The analysts further expounds Let us remember that amongst these generation of players , many will not have the fortune of making it to the best professional leagues abroad, some may need to develop and mature before they move; therefore it is the duty of the Federation to create adequate working conditions for them to enjoy the fruits of their hard work, while they play in Cameroon.
They need to start tasting the delight of a decent standard of living while they develop within our Elite One Championship or else they will eventually vanish and fade away into oblivion with their talents.
Recent outings by FECAFOOT''s spokesperson Ernest Obama, shows Cameroon's National Broadcaster the CRTV only pumps 30 million frs CFA annually as part of their broadcast deal with FECAFOOT.
Since the publication of his findings, the social media landscape in Cameroon has been entertaining his views and some have questioned FECAFOOT's abilities to fully have clubs sustainably benefitting from image rights in Cameroon. Others have wondered when will Cameroonian clubs become financially viable to rub shoulders with Tanzanian giants in the transfer markets.
