Football - DR Congo: the fixture-calendar headache

Congolese players are playing at a relentless pace at the end of the season, with everything due to stop on 30 June, the cut-off date for the waiver granted by the Sports Minister to the Congolese Football Federation to complete all these championships.

The situation has created an overlap between the schedules of the Ligue 1 play-offs, the Coupe du Congo and the Ligue 2 play-offs, making life difficult above all for players who are forced to play every 72 hours, or even less.

Ligue 2 play-offs cancelled, Ligue 1 to end on 26 June

With the fixtures overlapping, a team has at times had two matches on the same day, one in Ligue 1 or Ligue 2 and another in the Coupe du Congo. The situation has caused plenty of confusion around the matches.

Faced with all these problems, the FECOFA Normalisation Committee brought together the clubs and LINAFOOT to tell them of its decision to cancel the Ligue 2 play-offs, even though the teams were already playing the second round of matches. It also set 26 June as the end of the Ligue 1 play-offs, before everything wraps up with the Coupe du Congo final on 30 June.

The decision was welcomed by several sports analysts, some of whom think FECOFA should simply not have allowed the Ligue 2 play-offs to go ahead. "It's good that the Ligue 2 play-offs have been cancelled, but I believe the FECOFA Normalisation Committee should have shown more responsibility by simply not authorising this stage in Ligue 2, knowing that time was very short. Now it is cancelling the competition when the clubs have already committed resources ", said analyst Richard Kadima.

To resolve this recurring problem of the sporting season overrunning in the DR Congo, FECOFA and LINAFOOT should draw up an annual calendar setting out the precise periods in which each competition is held.

The absence of an annual calendar exposes organisational shortcomings that tarnish the image of Congolese football.