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Football : Inevitable Reconstruction (10.08.2006)
Football is the darling sport of Cameroonians. Over the years, the discipline has brought much honour, money and pride to the country. But for feminine football, all other categories of the sport have fetched gold for Cameroon. In the same light, if Cameroon is known world wide today, it is partly thanks to the exploits of its footballers. Call the name Cameroon out of the country and what immediately comes to the mind of most foreigners are names such as Roger Milla, Patrick Mboma, Eto’o Fils, etc. Added to this is the contribution of football to national unity. When the Lions are on stage, all Cameroonians feel like one. Generally, the victory of the Lions is considered as a victory of the entire nation.
Unfortunately, for over three years now, Cameroonians have not been given the opportunity to celebrate around their team. Victory that was commonplace, has become as scarce as dog’s tears. The last victory of the senior national football team was in 2002 in Mali when they grabbed the African Cup of Nations for the fourth time. That same year, they put on a dismal performance at the World Cup in Korea/Japan as they were eliminated in the first round. In the 2003 Confederation Cup in France, the Lion spirit took the team to the final; a final marked by the absence of one of the pillars of the team. Marc Vivien Foe who dropped dead during the semi final encounter. In 2004, Cameroon as defending champions crashed out of the African Cup of Nations in Tunisia at the quarter finals. Thereafter, the Indomitable Lions failed to qualify for 2006 World Cup in Germany. It was a very big blow to Cameroonians who for more than a decade had been used to seeing their darling team on the world stage. They were however present in Egypt but once more failed to move beyond the quarter finals. The Olympic, junior and women teams have also failed to make any impact on the continental scene for sometime now.
With regards to club football, no Cameroonian club has reached the final in any continental competition in the last decade. This year, of the four clubs which represented Cameroon at the Champions League
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and Confederation club (Coton Sport, Aigle, Impot, Astres), two dropped at the preliminary rounds and the remaining two are the 16th finals. All teams were beaten by teams hitherto considered as football underdogs. On the national scene, the Division I football is today a shadow of itself. The stadiums have been deserted by spectators.
Faced with this dismal situation, the Head of State, Paul Biya, has decided to take the bull by the horns, especially as the eliminatories of the 2008 African Nations Cup will begin in less than a month. It is certainly for this reason that he instructed the Prime Minister, Head of Government, to seek solutions to the problems of football.
In reaction, last Tuesday, Prime Minister, Ephraim Inoni, chaired a meeting grouping the principal stakeholders in the domain of football in Cameroon. The meeting attended by the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, the President of the Cameroon Football Federation and the Vice-president of the National Olympic and Sports Committee, sought to lay ground work for the relaunch of Cameroon football. This is expected to begin with the selection and recruitment of a new national football team coach and manager who would provide the Indomitable Lions with the technical skills necessary to revamp the sport.
In the same vein, the Minister of Sports was asked to submit the implementing instruments, the already adopted Sports Charter. FECAFOOT and the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education who have been at daggers drawn for long, were asked to work hand in glove for the good of football. They are expected to design a schedule of international sports encounters backed by a financial plan, from various sources, for these competitions. The cat and mouse attitude of the two structures is partly responsible for the decline in the quality of football in Cameroon.
The instructions of the Head of Government did not appear to have fallen on deaf ears. Yesterday, the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, Philippe Mbarga Mboa, met with members of the Cameroon Football Federation to chart the new way forward.
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