'No money, no league': threat hangs over Cameroon football season
With the league hoped to kick off in December 2024 after a record seven-month break, clubs are threatening to boycott the competition.
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Tension is rising ahead of the long-awaited start of Cameroon's professional football league. Fecafoot is pencilling in late November or early December for the restart - almost seven months after the end of the previous season, the longest break in the history of the professional league in Cameroon since its creation in 2011 - but that prospect is under threat from a revolt by club presidents.
Following the general assembly of the Association of Elite Clubs of Cameroon (ACEC) on 11 October 2024, the club officials made the start of the top-flight and second-division leagues conditional on the Cameroonian Football Federation (Fecafoot) paying the arrears of the previous season's subsidy. To date, the sport's governing body has still not settled its debts. "No money, no league," one of them insists.
The club presidents' anger intensified on 29 October, when they received a message from Fecafoot sending them "the marketing charter and the MTN Elite 2024-2025 club sponsor qualification form to sign" and to "return to it by 8 November 2024 at the latest". The request is struggling to win a favourable response from club officials. "Most of us have answered in the negative. We are waiting for the money and for documents to sign. We cannot commit to a new league without being paid for the previous season."
A financial crisis that drags on
Financial problems are nothing new in Cameroonian football. The current situation is a symptom of a long-running crisis. "The lack of funding is chronic," said Billy Houto, a sports commentator at SNA. In his view, Cameroonian football is caught in a vicious circle. Clubs say they are providing the supporting documents the federation has requested to release the funds, but the money is not arriving. According to behind-the-scenes reports, talks are under way to avoid a chaotic season.