BURIAL OF CAMEROON FOOTBALL REVERSED: Personal opinion.

By Dr. Forbi Joseph 

I have hopes for Cameroonian football and do not want these hopes to evaporate. Now, there is a requiem for Cameroon's football. The English premiership (EP) and the recent liberalization of the media with neo-colonization in Cameroon have clearly hammered the final nail in Cameroon football coffin and even the confusion in the Cameroon football ngumba house (FECAFOOT) in Yaoundé has done us no good. My friend danced ‘merengue’ when Chelsea scored. I wished he danced for Ndu tea football club.

This much is clear to me. Cameroonians have adopted the EP teams and are unable to name a single player who plays for their local Cameroonian club-side like PWD, Tiko United, Panthère-Ndé, Canon-Yaounde and Ndong Awing. Not to mention naming players in teams such as neighboring Enugu Rangers and Shooting Stars of Ibadan. It is so fashionable for Cameroonians to wear Chelsea and Manchester United school uniforms. Even children do. There is no room for the showcase of jerseys coming from PWD Bamenda, Cotonsport Garoua, Kumbo strikers, Renaissance-Ngoumou and Mankon & Bafut United. It seems to me that these die-hard EP supporters are EP colonies or slaves. I only hope that this is my mistake.

However, enter a shop in Cameroon and you will hardly see a ‘polo’ engraved with L'Aigle Nkongsamba or PWD Bamenda symbols. Bring a discussion about PWD and your friends will describe you as old fashion. It will be sweet when it’s EP. The effects of these are predictable. The local stadia are virtually empty. This is bad economic calculation. Cameroon participates in many local and international engagements instead we are glued to the TV watching EP and almost developing hypertension. Unbelievable! The local TV could help us restore a substantial part of this lost glory. Is it true that a home TV station interrupted its popular late news to broadcast an EP game? Are the local leagues shown on TV? The TV only shows what could entice fans or should I say, worshipers and bring money. Again, this, I say, is wrong.

Obviously, Cameroonian fans of local teams are now part of a dinosaur-breed. They are now few and far between and soon they will be extinct. What then is FECAFOOT doing about this dreadful situation about our local football? They are comatose and quarrelling over leadership of the association. Our football makossa dancing ambassador Milla Roger may be right here. He has repeatedly called for the closure of the moribund FECAFOOT doors. May God whatever you perceive HIM to be help us. How can we extinguish this negative tendency? The local football houses must realize the threats that exist within their own environments and plan accordingly. The fight is on and Cameroonian should realize this. It is unwillingness to think BIG that will eventually STOP us.

I speak for a COUNTRY that has produced the greatest footballers of all nations. I’m speaking for a country that has qualified six times for the FIFA World Cup, more than any other African team (1982, 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2010). I hope that as we enter the New Year and new football season Cameroonians will be seen actively participating and wearing the Njala Quan-Victoria and Unisport Bafang school uniforms. Together we can kill the football slavery, treat the EP football fever and then well position our local league. I am confident and I refuse to be unconcern. Our backyard is closer than a distance backyard and it is our duty to care for it.

Happy New Year to you all.

Comments

[John Dinga]

Thank you sir, for this timely biopsy of our king sport. I call it biopsy not because you are a doctor but simply because from a biopsy one can learn a lot about what is happening to the larger body. A small piece of tissue extirpated from an organ - lung, liver, kidney, stomach -can help us diagnose and know what is wrong with the entire organ.

What you so succinctly narrate here for Cameroon's football could be applied to so much else in our Golden Triangle. We are more obsessed with obtaining educational and other honorific diplomas from institutions abroad than from local ones. We would rather rush to France, Baden Baden, Switzerland etc to have our medical check up than at the local general hospital. Our banking is easier and safer at a foreign haven than at home. Our choice referees and coaches for the king sport are usually from abroad and invariably people whose skins have a slightly thinner amount of melanin than most of us. And so on, and so on.

You are quite right to observe the obsession with foreign football teams and their fate than those in our own country. It is a disease that defies treatment. It calls for a little more introspection on our part. It calls for an open national debate if the heavyweights can just ease off a little and give the ordinary Joe a say.

[Fon Emmanuel]

Hello Dr, Forbi
When I went to Yaounde for my first time to my amazement I discovered that the locals started building their houses from the roof. I am neither an architect nor a builder but as a typical Northwesterner I had never been prepared to even imagine that any house could be built from the roof downwards. That gave me a very unsettling feeling about these people which has been made worse over the years by the way they started handling the affairs of state as they came into power. To prove me right nothing has gone right in Cameroon since they assumed leadership in Cameroon. Concerning football in particular, like the way they build their houses they see Cameroon football only from top to bottom. When the national team is performing well then Cameroon football is equally doing well. But nothing is furthest from the truth. To reverse this EP preference to that of our domestic league will not need rocket science.
We need infrastructure very badly, but when our premier league was vibrant and teams like Canon Yaounde, Union D'la, Tonnerre Yaounde used to strike terror across the African continent, we did not have much of any infrastructure. Will Bamenda stadium not still provide a wonderful football pitch if only grass is replanted there and maintained constantly while waiting for better infrastructure? This goes with many other stadiums all over the country.
Also history has proven that corporations run teams better and if only government can encourage these corporations by some legislation that calls for them to sponsor teams as part of their contribution to youth and sports development programs, we will within the shortest time return to the level we were before negligence stepped in. Coton sport is a an example of corporate sponsorship that improves team performance thereby increasing competitiveness. I never had the chance to play up to first division in Cameroon but my High school team between 1978 to 1980 i.e. GHS Mbengwi was far superior to most first division clubs today in Cameroon. So why would people spend money to watch less than average quality football as we see in Cameroon today?

[Bandeko]

It is a symptom of the spiritual death of the La Republique du Cameroun. It will only start becoming whole again when Southern Cameroons Shall be free.