By Innocent Mbunwe
Cameroon Football Federation, FECAFOOT, has decided to offer FCFA 18 million rather than the FCFA 25 million Division I Club Presidents are demanding from the Association.FECAFOOT accepted to pay FCFA 5 million in cash, then, another FCFA 5 million by cheque and the remaining FCFA 8 million will be used in sponsoring the clubs.
The Association of Division I Club Presidents, headed by Michel Kamdem who doubles as President of Union Sportive of Douala, had asked FECAFOOT to pay each Division I Club FCFA 25 million for four years, or pay FCFA 100 million at once before they will play the 2007 National Championship that is supposed to kick off on February 3, in Ebolowa.
Kamdem's association also called on FECAFOOT to reinstate the 16 team league system rather than the 18 recently adopted by FECAFOOT's Executive Committee.
The Association also chastised FECAFOOT for failing to respect the laws of the game by promoting Tonnerre of Yaounde, AS CETEF of Douala , CPS Abongbang, University of Ngoundere and Lion Ngoma to Division I after feuds at the last Round Robin National Interpools Tournament.
It is alleged that 12 out of the 18 teams have already collected part of the money proposed by FECAFOOT while some other clubs are still hesitant because their demands have not been taken care of.
By press time, a meeting between all the Club Presidents, the President and the General Manager of FECAFOOT, Iya Mohamed and Jean Lambert Nang, respectively, was taking place at the Federation's headquarters in Yaounde.
Meanwhile, personality conflict, greed and self-interest in the Federation and other football stakers have recently pushed the Federation into a yarn.
Cameroon's football is going down the drain since the non-qualification of the Indomitable Lions to the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
It is either a brawl between FECAFOOT, the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education and other stakeholders in the game or between sponsors.
Recently, it was the case of the Lions' trainer, Arie Haan's whereabouts or the relegation of Mt. Cameroon to Division III and its reinstatement after an appeal, or the Tonnerre, CETEF saga, and so on and so forth.
Recently still, the Junior Lions came back home in shame after a mediocre performance at the current African Youth Championship in Congo.
Egypt and little known Zambia humbled the Junior Lions whom the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, Augustine Edjoa, described as "running on their own and playing anyhow on the field."
The disappointed Minister committed to call a forum to mend the country's soccer.
Hopes of the country's soccer situation getting ameliorated is dwindling as the Federation is webbed in scandals of poor management and lack of a national strategy for soccer. FECAFOOT is said to be have become an enterprise to fatten individuals who have little interest for the growth and development of football.
The persistent problems of lack of football stadiums in the country is an old song no one wants to listen to.
The Federation has to go back to the drawing board to rephrase the strategies of uplifting the nation's football from its present melancholy to the limelight of world soccer, else Cameroon will soon be at the bottom of African soccer.
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