ACTUALITE |
31.01.2002
Build more stadiums to honour Cameroon`s football prowess
The Indomitable Lions of Cameroon are creating
sensation at the ongoing CAN 2002 in Mali. Their
avant-guardist sleeveless jersies have left no one
indifferent. But even their worst critics still
respect Cameroon`s national team for their long
established football prowess which they continue to
demonstrate in Mali.
The role of football in defining modern Cameroon
cannot be underestimated. Its enviable record of
victories, sometimes on the most unexpected occasions,
have portrayed Cameroon as a fighting and winning
nation.
Thanks to television Cameroon`s players are known
world-wide and serve as role models for thousands of
youths across the world. At home football has
contributed in forging a sense of belonging to the
same nation.
For a country whose many ethnic and cultural groups
often have little in common than belonging to the same
country, football has become a great instrument of
development and source of national pride.
But while acknowledging the huge role of football in
Cameroon, public authorities have failed to give it
all the support and the means that the game needs to
tap its full potential. The initiative of the Ahidjo
era with the construction of stadiums in Yaounde,
Douala and Garoua has not been followed up by the Biya
regime which has reaped the fruits of those early
days.
There is need to start a government owned
multi-discipline sports training infrastructure
development in all provincial headquarters and main
towns of Cameroon. That will be the most profitable
and lasting honour to pay the king game, as football
has been called.
At the current CAN tournament in Mali, the Lions were
the first to qualify for round two by winning their
first two matches, which no other team did. Their play
is sometimes amateurish and disappointing but they
have a winning spirit and do win. The fact that they
are current African cup holders makes them all the
more a very respected side.
Cameroon`s reputation in football didn`t begin in the
last two years. Cameroon has had a distinguished
standing in African football since independence in
1960. It was the Oryx Club of Douala that first lifted
the club champions cup in Ghana in 1960. Both in the
nations and club championships, and since the 1982
World Cup in Italy, Cameroon has built for itself a
solid reputation as an African football power house.
It is the only African country so far to qualify for
the World Cup finals for the 5th consecutive time.
From television screens Cameroonian players are well
known and admired across the world. A taxicab driver
or a shopkeeper in Edinburgh, in Kuala Lumpor or in
Tripoli instantly asks about Roger Milla as soon as he
hears you are from Cameroon.
This is all very good for Cameroon`s reputation
abroad. Football has contributed arguably more than
diplomacy to put Cameroon on the map of the world and
more importantly to give it the reputation of a
winning nation. The government with perennial
complaints about its human rights record, corruption
and abusive management, has instead worked to give a
bad name to Roger Milla`s country.
The sad thing about the excellent work of the Lions
and football in general is that the government does
not promote or honour it by investing in it. All the
players who have distinguished themselves did so on an
individual basis. In recent years businessman Kadji
Defosso started a football training academy for young
talents. The initiative is private eventhough
government benefits from it.
Because Cameroon is a mosaic of disparate ethnies and
cultural groups government has since 1960 made
national unity and integration the centre piece of its
domestic policy.
Quite strangely, although football has since been
recognized as sense of belonging together as one
nation, the government has not promoted football by
investing in the development of its infrastructure.
Wouldn`t the government be wiser to reverse this
policy and conceive a bold programme involving local
councils for the gradual development of a
multi-discipline sports complex in provincial
headquarters and other important towns across the
country?
To keep such facilities in regular use, which will
justify the investment, FECAFOOT could introduce
provincial tournaments and competitions. That also
will provide the opportunity for the discovery and
supply of talents at home and abroad.
Apart from the important sums of money paid out to
national team players to motivate them only an
ambitious programme of sports infrastructure
development will truly honour football for its
contribution to national development.
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Hits: 1 | Source:The Herald | |
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