Editorial: Why Eto'o Fils must resign.

The major scoop of the meeting is that he rightly submitted his resignation. Patriotism, nationalism and honour demands that the other members should have also resigned.

But mired in egoism, greed and selfishness, the other members refused to emulate their boss and instead issued a press release saying Samuel Eto’o Fils will continue his mandate of 'developing grassroots football', according to his programme, which obtained the approval of the General Assembly in 2021.

Since his election, Eto’o’s mandate, so far, has been riddled with red and yellow cards. 

The catalogue of accusations, including one from the Association of Amateur Football Clubs of Cameroon, faulted him on the following nine points in a communiqué they later disseminated on the social media: 

“Anti-statutory and illegal modification of the current mandate of the President of FECAFOOT, from four (04) years to seven years; total opacity in the financial management of FECAFOOT, the members of which are the clubs, know nothing of the budget adopted on August 27, 2022, whereas in the past, the amount of the annual budget of FECAFOOT, as well as the estimated income and expenditure were within reach of members; exclusion from competitions, without valid reason, of certain clubs; propensity of the President of FECAFOOT to resort, in violation of the statutes of FECAFOOT, to common law courts for sports disputes; lack of transparency and objectivity in the choice of national team coaches and players in all categories; non-redistribution to amateur football clubs of the direct financial benefits of the 2022 World Cup; signing of a sponsorship contract between the President of FECAFOOT and a sports betting company, in violation of the provisions of the FIFA Code of Ethics and the FECAFOOT Code of Ethics;  appointment, by the President of FECAOOT, of individuals to replace regional executives and regularly elected departmental executives, without any legal basis; arbitrary exclusion of all members of the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, who criticised the opaque and very personal management style of the President of FECAFOOT; poor performance of various national selections, a consequence of risky management of these selections; financial consequences relating to the unilateral termination of Coach Toni Conceição's contract”. 

To compound the problems, CAF, FIFA and the Cameroon government are said to have opened investigations to get to the unblemished truth about domestic leagues match-fixing and other allegations.

In a defensive statement on August 10 last year, issued by Eto'o's lawyer, the CAF decision was criticised as "pernicious and toxic communication". 

It added that: "This hasty position on the part of CAF is all the more surprising in that it already refers to allegations which appear serious at first sight, even though to date, Mr Eto'o Fils has not been notified of any of the accusations allegedly made against him".

CAF, however, said Eto'o remained with clean hands until proven to the contrary. 

Since then, nothing has been heard of the investigations, but there are speculations that they are still ongoing.

The climax of the problems facing Eto'o's management was in Côte d'Ivoire, where he was accused of deciding who plays and the game plan. 

Some of the technical team members even reportedly threatened to resign, in protest against Eto'o's meddling in their work while he dangled threats to fire them.

Traditionally, when a team performs appallingly as the Lions did in Cote d’Ivoire, without coordination, no game plan and playing like they did against Nigeria without a shot at goal, Coach Song Regobert, who was appointed by Eto'o, under questionable circumstances, should either resign or be fired.

Honour, patriotism and nationalism also demand that Eto'o should resign. He has conceded that he is unfit for the job. 

Members of his executive, who are more interested in what gets into their pockets, rather than national pride, should not force him to do what he has confessed he is unable to do.

At The Guardian Post, we congratulate Eto'o for admitting he cannot keep to the promises he made during his election as the country’s FA boss. 

We urge him to reject being led by the nose by hungry executive members to smear his reputation as a former world-class attacker.