One month today Cameroon and Burkina Faso are slated to get the Africa Cup of Nations underway, probably in Yaounde even if doubts remain over the host nation’s ability to stage the tournament.

Up to 40 Premier League players could be involved. And as the UK adds much of the African continent to its travel red list following the spread of a new coronavirus variant the word could is doing a lot of lifting.

There are still too many doubts and questions around a tournament that may impact Arsenal and Chelsea severely but see Tottenham Hotspur continue unchanged.

So here is an explainer of the key dates, what still needs to happen to make it a reality and for how long players from your club are likely to be absent.

How long does the tournament last?

The final is scheduled for February 6 in Yaounde, meaning a player who goes all the way could end up missing seven club fixtures should he have to report for duty on December 27, which is the date currently stipulated by FIFA.

That’s pretty much two weeks before the tournament starts. Is there a chance of players being given permission to join up later?

Yes. This is a work in progress with clubs negotiating late releases with respective national teams. Some clubs, including Arsenal and Chelsea, are hopeful that they can keep their players until a week before the tournament kicks off, with Chelsea and Liverpool particularly keen on that possibility considering the title hopefuls face each other on January 2. Senegal, for whom Edouard Mendy and Sadio Mane will be star men, play their opening game on January 10, ditto Hakim Ziyech’s Morocco with Mohamed Salah’s Egypt a day later.

Which clubs will be impacted most?

It is perhaps easier to say who will not be without a key player. Four Premier League teams – Tottenham plus Leeds, Newcastle and Norwich – will not have anyone reporting for duty. Watford could be worst hit with five members of Claudio Ranieri’s squad in contention and next worse off could be Arsenal and Crystal Palace. Mikel Arteta may be without Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon), Mohamed Elneny (Egypt), Thomas Partey (Ghana) and Nicolas Pépé (Ivory Coast) for the duration, with Patrick Vieira contemplating the absence of Jordan Ayew (Ghana), Cheikhou Kouyaté (Senegal), Jeffrey Schlupp (Ghana) and Wilfried Zaha (Ivory Coast).

Is there a chance they will not go at all because of the Omicron variant?

Unlikely but not impossible. The situation will need to worsen further but it is worth taking note of the warning statement sent by the European Clubs’ Association last week relating to their “deep concerns” around player welfare and their desire to work with FIFA to “ensure all necessary precautions are in place to protect players and club interests” as the health situation “continues to deteriorate in an alarming manner”.

On the other side the CAF head of communications, Alex Siewe, told BBC Sport on Tuesday that there has been no mention of a postponement. “We can’t keep spending time dealing with rumours,” he said. “We did not receive any other message or information from our leaders – nothing such as changing of dates or countries. We did not discuss such during all our last meetings. We are on site. We are working.”

If Cameroon was added to the red list, players would need to be quarantined for 10 days upon their return but, going off the rules for last month’s international break, they would be allowed special permission to train and play games.

Reports suggest there is still a lot of work to be done?

It seems that way. FIFA’s secretary general Fatma Samoura has taken a hands-on role in recent weeks due to stadiums and facilities being behind schedule. There are meant to be six grounds in use but CAF have not confirmed the exact status.

So what happens if they fail to get things ready?

No deadline has been specified and there have been whispers of moving the show elsewhere – possibly to Qatar. But that poses another long list of logistical questions and at the beginning of this week former CAF technical director Abdel Moneim Shatta suggested that it could simply end up being cancelled in a TV interview.

Source: Football.London

The Confederation of African Football have dismissed rumours that next month’s Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) could be moved away from Cameroon following the recent discovery of the new Omicron variant of Covid-19.

The new variant has led to travel restrictions being introduced by some countries for several African nations, with Nigeria, which neighbours Cameroon, the latest to be added to the United Kingdom’s ‘red list’.

In recent days, some media organisations have suggested the dates of the 24-team tournament could change or even the location be moved, possibly to Qatar.

Caf’s director of communications, Alex Siewe says neither his organisation nor leading Cameroon officials have discussed such events.

“We can’t keep spending time dealing with rumours,” he told BBC Sport Africa.

“We did not receive any other message or information from our leaders—nothing such as changing of dates or countries. We did not discuss such during all our last meetings. We are on site. We are working.”

Africa’s football showpiece, which has already been delayed because of the global pandemic, is due to kick off on January 9 in Yaounde with the final on February 6. Staff from the Caf arrived in Cameroon this week to organise the Afcon finals.

“An official delegation from Caf has been released and general secretary Veron Mosengo-Omba is joining us in two days,” Siewe added.

The European Club Association, an independent body that represents clubs across Europe, has expressed its “deep concerns” regarding player welfare before the tournament, adding that the public health situation “continues to deteriorate in an alarming manner”.

Kenya’s national team, Harambee Stars, will be a no show at the forthcoming Africa Cup of Nations. Algeria is the defending champions, having won the 2019 edition.

Kenya’s slim hopes of qualifying for the continental showpiece were dimmed after settling for a 1-1 draw with Egypt in their penultimate Group ‘G’ qualifier at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.

Other than hosts Cameroon and champions Algeria, other nations expected in the tournament include Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Equatorial Guinea.

Others are Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, G. Bissau and Malawi. Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia, Sudan and Zimbabwe will also participate.

Source: The Star.co.ke

Cameroon’s minister of Sports and Physical Education Narcisse Mouelle Kombi said on Friday that the country’s biggest stadium will be able to host matches at January’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), despite delays in completing ongoing construction work.

Cameroon’s government was scheduled to hand over the new 60,000-seat Olembe Stadium to sports authorities on Friday, but postponed the date “indefinitely.” It was the second time in less than one week the government had postponed the handover ceremony.

Kombi said that technical delays were hindering the stadium’s completion.

“This is mainly because of the pursuance of the technical review and assessment of about 500 compartments within Olembe Stadium and its annex facilities. The full functionality of these compartments is necessary for the total operation of this wonderful football facility. The government has expressed the firm zeal to ensure that all the facets of the stadium meet world class standard,” Kombi told reporters in the capital Yaounde.

The stadium, located 13km north of Yaounde, is scheduled to host the opening match of AFCON on January 9 next year, with the final to take place in the same stadium on February 6.

Cameroon has already inaugurated four other stadiums in the cities of Douala and Garoua, as well as Chinese-constructed stadiums in Bafoussam and Limbe which will also stage several AFCON matches.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Former Barcelona striker Samuel Eto’o has been cleared to stand in elections to be the next president of the Cameroon Football Federation (Fecafoot).

A total of six candidates, including incumbent Seidou Mbombo Njoya, have been approved by Fecafoot’s electoral committee to stand in the polls on 11 December.

Another former international Jules Denis Onana is also eligible for the elections, however his 1990 World Cup team-mate Emmanuel Maboang Kessack was ruled out as he owes Fecafoot $7,600.

The other three names on the list of eligible candidates for president are Crepin Soter Nyamsi, Justin Tagouh and Zacharie Wandja.

One other person, Manuel Boyomo, has also been prevented from taking part in the polls because he failed to provide the required number of endorsement letters.

When Eto’o, 40, first announced his intentions in September it was amid controversy in Cameroon after candidates with dual nationality had been told they could not stand in the elections.

Eto’o, who also had spells with Inter Milan and Chelsea, was granted dual Spanish nationality during his time at Barcelona.

Source: BBC

FIFA has again come under attack for its political maneuvering in Africa, this time from a leading club president in Cameroon who criticises the world governing body and its president Gianni Infantino for manipulating the federation politics, manipulating and ignoring rulings made at CAS and preventing the meaningful development of the game in Africa.

Abdouraman Hamadou Babba, president of top flight club Etoile Filante de Garoua, in a letter to national associations and the FIFA Council titled ‘Denouncing the actions of FIFA President’, said: “In Africa in particular, the FIFA President, instead of working for FIFA, works for himself and for his re-election. All efforts made by FIFA staff in Africa are aimed primarily at establishing at the head of national associations persons who have pledged allegiance to Mr. Gianni Infantino, to ensure the vote of their respective federations during FIFA elections.”

It is an incendiary criticism and one that is frequently heard behind closed doors but such is FIFA iron grip on Africa, seldom heard publicly. Abdouraman Babba is one of a number of voices in football in Africa who has frequently held FIFA to account.

He says “the behavior of the President and GS (Fatma Samoura) of FIFA, in co-action with Mr. Veron Mosengo-Omba, henceforth GS of CAF, may be seen in several African countries, notably in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Chad, Madagascaror more recently in Kenya, to name but a few.”

With African nations increasingly falling into public dispute with FIFA, the African powerbase that Infantino has built his leadership could be potentially crumbling ahead of Infantino’s potential re-election.

“This obsession of the FIFA President to want, at all costs, to guarantee his re- election by choosing by himself thepresidents of the African national associations, is the main reason for the state of underdevelopment in which Africanfootball is found,” said Abdouraman Babba.

On 15 January 2021, the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) annulled the Cameroon FA electoral process that had been “fraudulently” organised by the FIFA Normalisation Committee in 2017. That happened after the cancellation of another fraudulent electoral process organised in 2015 by another Normalisation Committee appointed by FIFA in 2013.

“Curiously” says Abdouraman Babba,  CAS suggested to FIFA to allow the Executive Committee whose election had been cancelled to remain in office to organise a new electoral process.  Infantino, who at that same time was visiting Cameroon, announced on national TV that FIFA will continue in office, on an interim basis, with the Executive Committee which had just had its election      annulled by CAS.

“This position of the FIFA President, which is contrary to the provisions of Article 19 of the FIFA Statutes, was confirmed on 16 January 2021 by a letter from the FIFA Secretary General, Mrs. Fatma Samoura,” says Abdouraman Babba.

In response to FIFA’s decision he says the “legitimate members of FECAFOOT’s General Assembly convened an extraordinary session to appoint a Provisional Executive Committee to manage the current affairs and to organize a new electoral process.

“Despite this appointment and despite the clear position of the Cameroonian Minister of Sports, Mrs. Fatma Samoura and Mr. Véron Mosengo-Omba did what      had hitherto never been seen – jointly signed a letter on a header carrying the  logos of FIFA and CAF.  This letter ordered the illegal Executive Committee to hold a general assembly session, composed of illegitimate members of FECAFOOT, to adopt false statutes for FECAFOOT and to proceed to organize on this basis a false electoral process.”

Abdouraman Babba goes further, accusing the CAS Registrar’s office of being complicit with FIFA in withholding decisions made at arbitration and “influence the fate of certain arbitral rulings and even modify them in certain cases, especially when the interests of the FIFA President are at stake”.

In his letter he calls for a rewriting of the FIFA statutes around the imposition of Normalisation Committees as well as reform of CAS  which he says is “only   an instrument of domination and colonization in the hands of the FIFA President.It is urgent, in collaboration with the IOC, to put an end to the networks of influence peddling, which have captured CAS and are seriously hindering the development of football in the world.”

Source: Inside World Football

Earlier this week, Samuel Eto’o, the controversial Cameroonian football legend with strong ties to the corrupt regime in Yaoundé declared that Ernest Obama will be responsible for the media coverage of his campaign to become president of the Cameroon Football Federation (FECAFOOT).

Ernest Obama, former Director of Vision 4 Network and current general manager of BNews TV have a track record of being an anti Anglophone journalist and had called several times via Vision 4 for the complete destruction of Southern Cameroons.

The absurdity of this Samuel Eto’o appointment of Ernest Obama has shocked many Southern Cameroonians worldwide, but is perhaps most insulting to the English speaking Cameroonians who have supported Eto’o throughout his brilliant career as a footballer many of whom now have firsthand experience of the atrocities of the Biya Francophone radical Beti Ewondo regime in its five year-old war in Southern Cameroons.

The vast majority of Southern Cameroonians know all too well that the regime in Yaoundé not only has a deep-rooted hatred for English speaking Cameroonians, but has advanced an on-going genocidal campaign against Southern Cameroonians and with the support of French speaking journalists such as Ernest Obama promoted the military campaign that has claimed the lives of some 10,000 Cameroonians with army soldiers accounting for close to 35% of the deaths.  Shame on Samuel Eto’o and other Cameroon football heroes for turning a blind eye to the Biya regime’s deep-rooted anti Anglophone policies in order to advance their own financial interest.

The list of Ernest Obama’s  anti Anglophone actions  on Vision 4 TV are too voluminous, but perhaps his call for the total and complete annihilation of all Anglophones  gave Southern Cameroonians the signal that they were no longer welcome to live freely in the so-called one and indivisible Cameroon.

And indeed, Mr. Ernest Obama’s declarations caused a massive wave of Southern Cameroonians to flee their homeland to Nigeria and either leave their assets behind or sell them at bargain prices. The Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé has still not stopped the killings of innocent English speaking Cameroonians. Cameroon government army soldiers deployed to Southern Cameroons continue to arrest and torture thousands of Anglophones and confiscating millions of FCFA in Southern Cameroons businesses and assets.

Moreover, Southern Cameroons minority population has fled the country during these five year-old-war to the point where most of Southern Cameroons settlements are now ghost towns and villages.

Apart from Ernest Obama, Eto’o has been mentored for years by Bell Joseph-Antoine, another legendary Cameroonian footballer with well-documented anti Anglophone sentiments which also raise urgent questions about Samuel Eto’o’s intention. During a friendly football encounter with Egypt, Bell demonstrated absolute disrespect for the late Tataw Eta Stephen who was the captain by rushing to the referee with a flag he had in his pocket and performing the kickoff ritual with the Egyptian captain. When Stephen Tataw finished with the group photo business and went to the referee, he was told Bell Joseph had already conducted the process. In USA 94, Bell again continued with his anti Anglophone policy and rallied all the players from his Bassa Francophone extraction to have a vote on who to captain the team.  

“Yaoundé should not be giving positions to people with anti Anglophone sentiments, end of story,” a senior official of the Biya regime who spoke to Cameroon Concord News at the time of writing this report said.

 “Under the leadership of the Biya regime, Yaoundé has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to work with anti Anglophone cabinet ministers and political figures, and they appear willing to do so until the bitter end of the Biya presidency” a Southern Cameroonian living in Yaoundé told Camcordnews.

Eto’o reportedly met Mr. Samuel Mvondo Ayolo, Director of the Civil Cabinet at the Presidency of the Republic, another anti Anglophone CPDM baron.   So far, nothing has filtered out of the exchanges between the two French Cameroun personalities.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Football legend Roger Milla told SNTV on Thursday that he’s certain January’s Africa Cup of Nations will be a success and that the ‘huge infrastructure’ put in place in his native Cameroon will be of significant benefit to the youth of Africa.

In a wide-ranging interview during a visit to the Dubai Sports Council (DSC), the 1990 World Cup star said that Cameroon has been ready to host the CAN since before the pandemic and although he recognised that there has been a relative decline in the strength of traditional African powerhouses such as Cameroon, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire and Egypt, he hopes CAF president Patrice Motsepe can turn the situation around.

Milla also aimed a few blows at European football administrators and their reluctance to recognse African players at award ceremonies.

“The West has never liked African players winning the Ballon d’Or,” he said. “George Weah deservedly won the Ballon d’Or and the power-men couldn’t do anything because in that year George was the best and everyone saw and was convinced that he was the best, now they don’t want African players to win.”

“In my opinion, what Mohamed Salah is doing now is wonderful and extraordinary, and what Sadio Mane is doing as well, they must be effective if we want football to develop, especially in Africa,” Milla added. “Those in charge of these football institutions must be honest and admit (their quality).”

Source: Africa News

Football fans were treated to a throwback to a bygone era at Expo 2020 with the visit of Cameroon legend Roger Milla to the country’s pavilion.

The former striker, named the best African footballer of the previous 50 years in 2007 by the Confederation of African Football, shot to worldwide fame at the age of 38 when he scored four goals for Cameroon at the 1990 Fifa World Cup in Italy, marking each one with his trademark celebratory dance at the corner flag.

Aged 42, Mr Milla came out of retirement to play in the 1994 World Cup in the USA and broke his own record for being the oldest goalscorer in a World Cup by netting against Russia.

Mr Milla, now a Roving Ambassador of Cameroon, visited his country’s pavilion in the Opportunity District, where he met officials from the pavilion and a number of fans.

In an interview with the media team at Expo, Mr Milla revealed that this 15-year-old son plays in Dubai and is enrolled with the Fursan Hispania Academy, which was founded by former Spain and Real Madrid star Michel Salgado.

“I hope that by the next year or two, he will be like his father and will be able to play for his country,” Mr Milla said.

Source: The National news

There is a real possibility that the 2021 African Cup of Nations could well be postponed or even cancelled due to problems in the host country of Cameroon, it is claimed.

The 33rd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations is scheduled to take place from 9 January to 6 February 2022 after it was originally due to be played in June and July 2021 before the CAF announced that it would be postponed due to ‘unfavourable climatic conditions’ and then because of the effects of Covid-19.

The dates of the competition mean that Milan would be without the likes of Fode Ballo-Toure, Franck Kessie and Ismael Bennacer for a few games including some important fixtures in January.

However, journalist Eduardo Hagn is reporting that AFCON is at risk for 2022 as ‘there have been legal fights between the bodies responsible for making the tournament happen’. The main problem is that the President of FECAFOOT is in his role illegally and that is why ‘postponement or cancellation are a big possibility’.

Source: Sempremilan.com