ACTUALITE |
25.02.2004
Marginalisation of home based players, cause for falling standards of football in Cameroon
By Fred Vubem
In Cameroon, each time there is an international competition, home ased players who toil for the team to quality for the tournament, are relegated in favour of foreign based players. It’s as if to say, professionalism is the gateway to the Lions. For each time a player manages to find a club abroad, he is exposed in the media and the very next day, he is selected into the national team. This has led to a situation where players emigrate to Europe in the hope of finding fortune and recognition.
A glaring case in point is that of three times best players of the year in Cameroon Marcus Mokake who despite his impressive performance in the All Africa games in Abuja-Nigeria and the national league table, was dropped from the final selection to Tunisia 2004. Marcus had no other alternative than to seek for a club in Europe-Sedan (France) to have the etiquette of a professional attached to his name to cast out the ill luck of home based players.
The point is, with such a system in place, there is a drain of talents in the national league for as soon as a player gets mature, he flies away to Europe, making the standard of football to always remain low. No doubt, Cameroonian clubs are not performant at continental level but very domineering at the national team level.
Secondly, it should be noted that football has become an affair of money, big money. When players participate in international tournaments like the African Nations Cup, they also take something back home which to the professional player sounds like chicken feed but which represents a fortune for home based players. This can give them a comfortable stay in the country and therefore kill the ardour of emigrating to Europe.
When players are constrained to leave the country, they most at times leave without the consent or knowledge of their clubs and as such the clubs don’t get anything from the transaction. Hence, the club is deprived of valuable financial resources that would have enabled improve on the upkeep of their clubs.
Relying solely on professionals can be counter productive in the sense that the players lack the motive to fight to a finish as is characteristic of the Indomitable Lions. They are players who have proved their worth and turn to celebrate their celebrity rather than play purposeful football. It’s high time, Cameroon learns to strike the balance between foreign and home based players so as to assure exchange of experiences between the professionals and home based players and also maintain a high level of competition. To get on top is easy, but to stay on top in difficult.
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