Onana affair: two Cameroon legends hit out

Joseph-Désiré Job and Pierre Wome hung up their boots more than ten years ago. Inevitably, any public appearance by these two stars of Cameroonian football whets the appetite of journalists. On Tuesday 21 March 2023, the two former team-mates, winners of the 2000 Africa Cup of Nations, were guests on "Gueules de sport", a radio programme broadcast by the local channel RSI. For more than an hour, the old Indomitable Lions dissected the latest news around the Cameroon national team. One subject in particular provoked their outrage: the André Onana affair.

André Onana, a case "badly handled"

The Cameroonian goalkeeper was cast out of his country's squad on 28 November last year in Qatar for "indiscipline". The punishment came shortly before the Cameroon v Serbia match, the second game of the 2022 World Cup for the team. A few days later, the Inter Milan goalkeeper, who was eventually suspended by Fecafoot, announced his international retirement at just 26. Since then, Cameroon's football governing body has offered no explanation about the affair. And that is one of the things causing anger.

"You can't just turn the page on André Onana", Pierre Wome insisted. The Olympic champion from the Sydney 2000 Games is adamant: "He is the best Cameroonian goalkeeper at the moment. It is up to the Federation to find a solution, because this matter has been badly handled. What really happened? We are still waiting for the answer. I am not a member of the Federation, but if I were, I would have said no. Whatever he did, he should not have been forced out. It was the wrong way to go about it".

"The national team does not belong to one individual"

Joseph-Désiré Job is annoyed that Fecafoot is doing nothing to clear up the situation and bring home a player who is among the ten best goalkeepers in Europe right now. "What bothers me is that the national team is supposed to be made up of the best players. But we don't have our best goalkeeper. The national team belongs to Cameroonians, not to an individual. Nobody can condone the way this affair has been handled", says the former Olympique Lyonnais striker, who is convinced that André Onana has not closed the door on Cameroon for good. "He has not retired from international football; he is simply stepping aside because there is a problem. He wants to play for the national team, but the conditions and the current situation do not allow him to", he insists.

On the same subject: Cameroon: Andre Onana retires from international football

Arthur Wandji