High demand for Cameroonian footballers continues (19.08.2004)
Some 700 foreign-based young Cameroonian players have submitted requests for international transfer certificates to the national Football Federation (FECAFOOT) over the past 18 months, it was reliably learnt here.
"This is a real headache for the federation, which has so far accorded about 60 of the requested certificates", FECAFOOT`s secretary general Jean Rene Atangana Mballa said.
According to him, the main problems lies in the fact that almost all the applicants did not state that they were footballers when they left Cameroon but gave other reasons.
"The problem of identifying these young people is attributed to the reservations observed by FECAFOOT, which is now incapable of stopping this massive exodus of Cameroonian legs", he noted.
"It is true that these are drawn into day dreaming about equalling the wealth their professional elders had earned, while most of them are
also under pressure from their poverty-stricken families, which expect to break even through the efforts of their talented sons", Mballa added.
Sources close to FECAFOOT attributed the current poor performance of Cameroon teams in national and continental competitions to this rush for wealth from foreign teams.
Two years ago, FECAFOOT tried to curb this phenomenon by introducing a tax on transfers, but the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA) rejected the initiative, the sources said.
Cameroon soccer authorities are currently exploring other measures to attract young players to practice the sport at local level by re-organising the national championships.
They have also introduced financial incentives to clubs, like the recent financial allocation to the national leagues as well as grants to first and second division clubs.
