By Andrew Warshaw
July 9 – Cameroon officials have hit back at being suspended by Fifa and have pledged to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Last week FIFA expelled Cameroon from taking part in all football activity pending the establishment of a normalisation committee after ruling that the government had interfered in the Cameroon Football Federation’s (Fecafoot) elections in June, breaching Fifa rules obliging member associations to manage their affairs independently.
The suspension will prevent Cameroon from going ahead with their 2014 African Cup of Nations first-round qualifier against Gabon this coming weekend. But Fecafoot Vice President, Essomba Eyenga, said the suspension was unfounded. “It is a big surprise, I don’t see any government intervention in what happened,” he told the BBC. “We will make an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.”
FECAFOOT spokesman Junior Binyam, by contrast, admitted there had been intervention from the government — but not to obstruct the business of the federation.
“FIFA was involved in the meetings at the prime minister’s office so for FIFA to come this decision it must feel that some actions were authorized or accepted by the government,” he said. “Everything started on the 26 March when the minister of sport asked the federation to stop the elections. Many actions have been taken, probably with good intentions by the government, but that is not allowed by FIFA regulations.”
The results of the 19 June ballot – which re-elected Iya Mohammed as president – were cancelled by the federation’s own appeals committee. At that time he was being detained by the Cameroon authorities for alleged financial mismanagement and remains in custody.
However, Fifa’s ruling is understood to relate to what after the result was annulled, when Fecafoot vice president and former transport minister John Begheni Ndeh forcibly installed himself as president in what has emerged as a fierce internal power struggle.
Reports say Ndeh suspended Fecafoot Secretary General Tombi A Roko which led to the resignation of the first vice-president Seidou Mbombo Njoya who had expected to step in as interim boss.
In a statement last week, Fifa confirmed that the government interference was “linked to the occupation of the Fecafoot headquarters by security forces who unilaterally decided to install one of the parties involved in the contested electoral process.”
“As such, the authorities are clearly interfering with the internal affairs of Fecafoot in contravention of articles 13 and 17 of the Fifa statutes.”
“In addition, the occupation of the Fecafoot headquarters is yet another example of the long pattern of pressure applied by the authorities since the electoral process started in February 2013 and Fifa already sent in the recent months two correspondences.”