For ordering payment into his private account: FECAFOOT Executive C'ttee Member drags Eto'o to ethics committee.

The complaint also targets the former coordinator of the senior men’s national football team, Benoit Angbwa, and former FECAFOOT Secretary General, Blaise Djounang. The development was made public Monday. 

Guibai, in the complaint, said his decision is linked to the Russian Football Federation’s payment of funds belonging to FECAFOOT, in 2023, through a private bank account belonging to Samuel Eto’o Fils.

Last week, it should be said, an invoice leaked on social media networks showing the Russian Football Federation directly paid the sum of 455,000 Euros (approximately over 300 million FCFA) into Samuel Eto’o Fils’ account in October 2023.

The money was to serve as part of the package that was required to finance the friendly game the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon played against their counterparts of the Russian senior men’s national football team.

Guibai said by allowing the payment to be made through his personal bank account, Eto’o was engaging in corruption, embezzlement and being an accomplice to embezzlement. 

“These three officials are accused of corruption, embezzlement and complicity in embezzlement; offences provided for and punishable under Articles 21.2 and 27 of the FECAFOOT Code of Ethics,” Guibai said. 

“It is unacceptable for funds, belonging to the federation, to be paid in a personal account, even that of its president. FECAFOOT is a common heritage and cannot be assimilated to become the property of an individual or a group,” the football executive and celebrated media mogul added. 

Guibai said Benoit Angbwa and Blaise Djounang, who are no longer working for FECAFOOT, are dragged into the case due to the positions they held at the time of the transaction.

“This step is in line with the constant conduct that I have been defending since the beginning of the current mandate on 11 December 2021: the demand for ethics, transparency and the duty to set an example in the management of FECAFOOT’s assets and resources,” Guibai detailed.

The FECAFOOT Executive Committee member further promised to keep the public “regularly informed of the progress of these proceedings before the FECAFOOT Ethics Committee”.

Guibai is a long-serving FECAFOOT official. He has been one of the federation’s most vocal voices since the former football star-turned football executive, Samuel Eto’o Fils, took over as president of the national football governing body in December 2021. 

He was suspended for three-months and later handed a two-year ban from all football related activities in 2023.

But the man, whose suspension had him getting reinstated months later by the biggest sports court in global sports, the Court of Arbitration for Sports, CAS, has since returned as part of the structure’s Executive Committee, despite maintaining his stance as a critical voice.

In March this year, he failed to show up for an Extraordinary Session of the Executive Committee, in what was described as another episode of his move as a critical figure in the committee.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3483 of Tuesday June 24, 2025