Battle for SW FECAFOOT presidency getting ugly

It is almost now evident that heads may roll even before the FECAFOOT normalization committee steps into the South West region in the months ahead to organize fresh elections for the football federation.

Of late, the battle for the FECAFOOT regional top job has become so deadly that verbal confrontation has been the order of the day. The cold war that currently exists between potential candidates and delegates of the outgoing Senator Mbella Moki Charles-led executive bureau came to public view when one of the candidates, Barrister Agbor Balla in an interview with pressmen in Buea last Tuesday pointed accusing fingers at the former regime for attempting to frustrate the bids of candidates vying for the said position.

Agbor Balla who spoke to reporters at the end of an enlarged general assembly in Buea meant for the adoption of the new FECAFOOT revised statutes vowed that intimidation and blackmail would not stop him from contesting the election. He described his non invitation to the meeting as a ploy by some mischievous power mongers to eliminate him from the race.

Agbor Balla who showed up at the general assembly to represent Buea United FC, it should be noted, was bundled out of the hall after a roll call was conducted in which his name was never mentioned.

Talking to The Guardian Post after what he qualified a well-organized scheme to stop him from running for the South West FECAFOOT presidency, the Buea-based legal luminary who doubles as the publisher of New Broom magazine however remarked that: “the whole exercise was very encouraging.

It was a productive text. The amendments were good, it is just what we have been praying for, a text that will work for the advancement of football in the region”.

The barrister at law said regrettably that: “I was shocked that we are still going back to the Stone Age where we do gossip in a bid to eliminate potential candidates… some of the statements and utterances made by the outgoing president (Mbella Moki) were shocking.

He alleged that somebody did send text messages out to delegates. I was the one who sent those messages out. If you had visited the FECAFOOT website, it was published there that the adoption was supposed to take place on September 12. I went to the website and because they do not communicate, I used my personal resources to inform delegates about the meeting. But they took it for bad fate”.

Meanwhile, giving an appraisal of the general assembly, the representative of the president of the normalization committee, Ephraim Ngwafor said the revised text has been designed carefully for the advancement of football in the country. Hear him: “I think that we have a very rich document that will guide the activities of the federation. It was not a very big departure from the old text.

We only wanted to ensure that when elections virtually take place, no particular association is going to hijack the exercise. Here we are no longer talking about individuals but we are talking of associations with juristic persons.”

On his part, the outgoing South West FECAFOOT boss, Senator Mbella Moki Charles , sounded with confident that the document will go a long way to revolutionalize football in the region and beyond. He said his decision to stand for the upcoming election remains on a balance. “I have a lot of engagements which may not warrant me to run as a candidate.

I have done what I was supposed to do as president. It now time for me to count my achievements and conduct an assessment indicator. When I must have done all these, I will take a decision whether or not to go for another term.”