Editorial: FECAFOOT; Time to bury the hatchet.

He told Coach Brys and his collaborators, that he understands they are taking charge of the team within a very difficult context but enjoined them to be optimistic and focus on achieving tasks assigned to them.

Minister Mouelle Kombi insisted that discipline must be the watch word and advised the new technical staff to guard against any interference in the discharge of their duties.

The minister also advised the new trainer and his team to make use of the huge football talents in the domestic league and abroad.

The Indomitable Lions have more than anything else been a unifying force when they are in action. They have promoted the image of the country internationally, even if at times it has been sullied with scandals.

The team earned the national prestige of a patrimony, thanks to its scintillating and glorious performances of five trophies at the African Nations Cup tournament, the first African team to reach the quarter finals of the FIFA World Cup and seventh participation at the global soccer jamboree.

But that envious achievement has been fizzling out at dazzling speed, following the conviction, not related to football, of the former legendry FECAFOOT president, Iya Mohammed, in September 2015.

Since then, FECAFOOT management has been in turmoil, and by extension, the miserable performance of the Indomitable Lions. 

World football governing body, FIFA, has, on at least two occasions, stepped in with a Normalisation Committee, the last of which saw the election of Samuel Eto'o Fils and his executive, some two years ago.

Given his brilliant soccer performance, his supporters thought Eto'o would transform it into the "development of football" as touted during his campaigns. But that has been just a pipe dream.

Under Eto'o Fils, Cameroon has not only performed with ignominy on the pitch but in management and in courts.

The sad saga of FECAFOOT, under Eto'o, is one of immense potential, hampered by incessant tensions. Today, it is the recruitment of a coach.

Eto'o presented three names to the supervisory ministry which recruits and pays coaches but the government said their conditions of service were too astronomically high for the government to afford. 

No sane organisation will employ a person it cannot afford to pay his salary. It shouldn't have been any big deal to resolve, but FECAFOOT undiplomatically rejected the offer by the government.  

With the approval of the presidency where the buck ends, Belgian, Marc Brys, and his team, were appointed on April 2, 2024, by Sports minister and their contracts signed Monday April 8.

They were tasked by the minister, who presided over the ceremony, to rekindle the combative and winning spirit of the Indomitable Lions.

Marc Brys spent most of his career as a player and coach in Belgium. He also coached in Saudi Arabia. He had been unemployed since the end of his contract with Belgian club, OH Leuven, in October 2023. In his team are former Congolese footballers, Joachim Mununga and Giannis Xilouris.

He has two Cameroonian deputies; François Omam Biyick, and Ashu Cyprien Besong. 

Former Indomitable Lions’ keeper, Alioum Boukar, is also back in the den as assistant goalkeeping coach. 

Another former international on the staff, Dany Nounkeu, is the new team manager. Germain Noël Essengue is the Team Press Officer while Dr William Ngatchou returns as doctor. As for the coordination of selections, Benjamin Banlock replaces Benoît Angwa.

The Brys-led team has an immediate mission to qualify Cameroon for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, to be organised in the United States, Canada and Mexico and the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

Conspicuously absent at the contract signing ceremony was the FECAFOOT President, Samuel Eto'o Fils, who was duly invited by the sports minister.

A letter from FECAFOOT trending in the social media, quoted Eto’o as having apologised for the yarning vacuum with the flimsy excuse of preparations for the funeral of his father!

So FECAFOOT activities should be grounded because of the funeral of its president's father? Even if Eto'o, by some warp thinking, considered the funeral of his father as a FECAFOOT affair, why did he not send a staff of the federation to the ceremony?

Change, it is said, is often resisted. As Winston Churchill once said, "to improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often".

It happens in football where some coaches just resign when their performance nose-dives and do not even wait for their contract to expire. The new Indomitable Lions technical team has a contract of two and a half years, renewable if need be.

At this level, for the supreme interest of patriotism, nationalism and the team Cameroonians perceived as a national patrimony, it is time to bury the hatchet and give Brys and his team the fullest support. 

We rest our case!