The Belgian Marc Brys, the new coach-selector of the Indomitable Lions, appointed on April 2 by the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, arrived in Cameroon this Sunday, April 7. This is in the perspective of signing his contract, reported public television CRTV. The Cameroonian Football Federation (Fecafoot), which has clearly made known its opposition to this decision by Minister Narcisse Mouelle Kombi, should not proceed with the signing of the said contract. And to mark its disagreement, its emergency committee, during an ordinary session on April 6, authorized in particular the president of Fecafoot, Samuel Eto’o (photo), to appoint his own coach at the head of the Indomitable lions in the next 72 hours.
“ Unanimously by the members present, the emergency committee recommends to the president of Fecafoot to submit to it, in application of articles 4 of decree No. 2014/384 of September 26, 2014 and 40 paragraph 11 of the statutes of Fecafoot, proposals for the appointment of members of the management structures of national football teams within seventy-two hours , ” writes the federation in a press release. Fecafoot asserts that not only was it not associated with the procedure which led to the recruitment of Marc Brys and other members of the management of the Indomitable Lions, but that these appointments were made ” outside any legal and regulatory ”.
In a correspondence addressed on April 3 to the Minister of Sports – the day after the appointment of Marc Brys – Samuel Eto’o reminded Narcisse Mouelle Kombi that the technical examination of applications for the position of coach is a competence devolved to the federation that he directs, according to the terms of the decree of the President of the Republic of July 26, 2014 relating to the organization and operation of the national football teams. “ More precisely, in its article 3 (1), this regulatory act signed by President Paul Biya entrusts Fecafoot with the administrative, sporting and technical management of the national football selections. Our body is therefore competent to receive, evaluate and propose to government supervision the candidates for the vacancies concerned ,” writes the boss of Fecafoot. Consequently, he said, Fecafoot cannot, in absolute terms, “ be a party to this act devoid of any legal basis and cannot compromise with supranational regulations and, even less, with the legal and regulatory provisions in force. in our country “.
The reaction of the Minister of Sports was not long in coming. In a correspondence he addressed to Samuel Eto’o on April 5, Narcisse Mouelle Kombi replied that the decision to recruit Marc Brys and the technical, administrative and medical staff of the Indomitable Lions was taken on the basis of article 9 of the Minsep-Fecafoot convention of February 5, 2015. Which gives “ full and complete latitude to the State to recruit and make supervisors available to its national football teams ”, he maintains. And the member of the government clarified that it was this same process which had been used to appoint Clarence Seedorf, Toni Conceiçao and Rigobert Song in particular, “ without this having aroused the slightest controversy or attempt at obstruction on the part of Fecafoot “.
Narcisse Mouelle Kombi also informs Eto’o that his ministerial department ” has already taken all the useful and necessary, adequate and appropriate measures, in relation with the other state administrations concerned for the entry into office of the new coach-selector and other members of the management ” of the Indomitable Lions whom he appointed, and whose “ very high hierarchy approved the list ”. Fecafoot’s reaction remains awaited.
Patricia Ngo Ngouem