CAF competitions: Cameroonian clubs reveal football’s unstable management.
Cameroon’s unstable football management has once again been exposed on an international level. This followed the country’s clubs’ disastrous and ineffective performances in CAF interclub tournaments during the 2024/2025 season.
Cameroon, regarded as one of Africa’s most successful football countries, became embroiled in yet another massive incident over the weekend.
The disappointing performances of Victoria United FC in the CAF Champions League, Fovu Club of Baham in the CAF Confederation Cup, and Lekie Filles’ difficult exit for the CAF Women’s Champions League Zonal qualifiers have prompted questions about how football is conducted in the country.
The preparation of Cameroonian officials for their continental responsibilities left little to be desired.
Only at the eleventh hour did clubs like Victoria United and Fovu pay the high price for being unable to register their players.
Victoria United’s struggles
The Cameroon MTN Elite One winners for the 2023/2024 season faced Ghana’s Samartex in Douala on Sunday, August 18, 2024.
The game was delayed by approximately 50 minutes because the opposing team questioned the eligibility of several Victoria United players.
Victoria United had only 13 players registered in the CAF Connect System and cleared for the game, which surprised even the club president, Valentine Nkwain, who admitted he was “shocked”.
The Limbe team’s squad had to be changed prior to kickoff. They ended up losing 1-0.
Nkwain indirectly blamed the country’s football federation for their problems, stating that “someone somewhere didn’t do their job”.
Victoria United suffered a devastating defeat. The Limbe-based Elite One is now facing a premature first round elimination.
They have the opportunity to demonstrate their ambition to advance to the second round when they face FC Samartex in the return match this weekend.
The Case of Fovu
After a disastrous season that concluded in their relegation to the second tier league, Fovu Club of Baham were keen to find atonement in the CAF Confederation Cup.
However, there were warning signals that a turbulent campaign was on the way when more than three-quarters of the squad reportedly left the club at the end of last season.
To make matters worse, Christophe Ousmanou, who had been appointed the club’s head coach less than a month before their CAF Confederation Cup preliminary round match, resigned just days before their trip to Liberia.
Fovu Club was even unable to arrive on time for the game. According to reports, only four of the first ten players to board the trip to Monrovia were registered with the CAF Connect System.
Their match against Liberia’s Paynesville was supposed to start at 4 p.m. on Sunday, but it was delayed by up to 30 minutes. This was because Fovu only had six players ready for kickoff.
About 30 minutes after the official kickoff time, three more players and two officials, including the coach, arrived.
Only two of the three players, including the goalie and the newcomers, were photographed and entered into the CAF system.
According to accounts, match authorities allowed the game to be played with the Liberian team’s permission.
With such a cacophony and such conditions, Fovu Club could only field eight players.
They finally fell 4-0 and will require a miracle to qualify when they host the rematch in Yaounde this weekend.
Fovu of Bahama qualified for the CAF Confederation in September 2023 by winning the Cameroon Cup.
FECAFOOT’s nonchalance
While Cameroonian club administrators are being chastised for amateurism, the country’s football body bears the primary responsibility.
The federation has been accused of not only withholding clubs’ share of money from league sponsors, but also failing to assist clubs in meeting CAF requirements for such competitions. This has irritated groups that are already financially strapped.