Normalisation committee mandate-extension: A joke in bad taste

The normalisation committee of FECAFOOT headed by former education and sports minister, Joseph Owona has failed again and again on several fronts to “normalise” the management of Cameroon football.

The committee cunningly extended its mandate to manage the whooping World Cup money that was wrought with scandals. Now again it has awarded itself extra time to end only after it would have spent the cash of the African Nations Cup tournament that kicks off next month in Equatorial Guinea.

So angry have some soccer fans been pricked with the manipulations of the committee and sponsors that they invaded the social media calling for mass peaceful demonstration against the committee.

Its next faux pas was after the World Cup scandal at which the committee was overtly at loggerheads with officials of the ministry of youth and sports. President Biya ordered Prime Minister Philemon Yang to set up an enquiry to find out the cause.

Although the report of the month-long enquiry was never made known to the public after it was presented to the president, some action was taken to develop the management of the game. A presidential decree stipulated the time frame to pay bonuses and summon players for international duties.

The decree also defined the role of the ministry of sports and physical education vis a vis that of FECAFOOT. What Cameroonian soccer lovers were long expecting was the election of FECAFOOT president on 30 November after the normalization committee had woefully failed to conduct the election on March 30.

The catalogue of failures continued when it extended the deadline for candidates who intended to vie for the FECAFOOT presidency with the flimsy excuse that only one candidate had succeeded to compile their documents for the high office.

Again the tenure of the normalisation committee has been prolonged to February next year under the pretext of giving candidates more time to prepare their application to vie for the elective post. If one candidate was successful in compiling his documents, what stopped the rest from assembling their own in time? Wasn’t the time enough to prepare documents by any candidate who was serious in running for the office?

Is this extension to February not just timed to give Owona and his committee another opportunity to control the cash and benefits that normally come with the African Nations Cup and give their friends, swathed as members of official delegation, an expense-paid holiday in Equatorial Guinea?

So vexed with this latest postponement of the FECAFOOT election that soccer fanatics have called for protest. Joseph Antoine Bell, former Indomitable ace goalkeeper who had announced his plan to run for the FECAFOOT office is opposed to the protest, perhaps against a background that he was the hidden hand behind the social media agitations.

At a press conference last Saturday, he said even though it is his intention to become the new FECAFOOT president, he is however opposed to a call for protests which could end up in violence. "The calls make me to feel that there is a hidden agenda. I am for a clean football and nothing but football. We should remain mobilised and exercise fair play," he said.

If Cameroonians had any consideration for fair play, the normalisation committee would not have existed in the first place. When the former FECAFOOT president, Iya Mohammed was locked up in prison on charges connected with his management of SODECOTON, John B. Ndeh was elected president.

But because the overwhelming Francophone majority did not want an Anglophone to hold the office, they threatened to breach the peace. Troops were called in to keep law and order, but the Federation of International Football Association, FIFA, claiming it was government’s meddling in soccer management, imposed a ban on Cameroon.

It decreed against any soccer competition by Cameroon unless a “normalisation” committee was set up. That the government caved in and Joseph Owona and his team were installed on July 22 last year with the objective to review the FECAFOOT constitution and conduct elections in March 2014. The committee was also charged with the responsibility to run the administration of FECAFOOT and conduct elections both at regional and national levels.

When Cameroonians were expecting Owona to hand over to a new executive, FIFA's representative, Primo Corvaro and that of the Confederation of African Football , CAF, Prosper Abega came to Yaounde only to announce later that the mandate had been extended to November 30, 2014.

Justifying the extension, Corvaro said FIFA had underestimated the work to be done."The depth of the change is really big. We didn't know at the beginning that we needed so much time to do so much. I can say the statutes that will be put forward to the delegates which cover almost everything, are of the highest quality and even the best quality that you can find in member associations".

Despite all the eminent lawyers and law professors in Owona’s 11-man committee, it was unable to amend a constitution of a football association within eight months. Another eight months were added yet they failed to complete the assignment on November 30. Its second yellow card which in football parlance would have been a red, has meant another three months.

Would Owona and members of his committee which he himself described as “professionals” want Cameroonians to believe that they needed 19 months to revise an existing constitution and conduct elections? An elated Owona said after the extension that it was not just “paste work” to be done on the FECAFOOT constitution but legal experts assert the constitution would have been revised in three months.

He himself knows that it took less than that to revise the Cameroon constitution of which he was also the chairman. So why does this one take more than a year and a half especially as he acknowledged that members were well versed with the intrigues of Cameroon football?

Football fans know that FECAFOOT has always been riddled with controversial decisions, manipulations and scandals over money. It’s been a gold mine when those who get into its management do everything to “sit tight”. Sepp Blatter, FIFA president knows that, so does our own Issa Hayatou who has been on the CAF presidency for some three decades.

So when Owona and his committee keep asking for more time, nobody is fooled. The social media agitation is just the bubbles of discontent from underneath heading towards the surface. The committee would have finished their work at most within a year if not for the huge allowances they are earning.

The Guardian Post only hopes that Owona and his committee will not inflict the same disgrace on the nation in Equatorial Guinea as they did at Brazil 2014.