Magic and ‘Inter-quarter’ football championship

The holiday football championship in Cameroon, popularly known as ‘Inter-quarter’ has been characterised by tales of magic or ‘juju’ used in the tourney.

These stories and the vuvuzelas of supporters, who always come out to cheer their various quarters or neighbourhoods, all make these inter-quarter championships the best tourney in Cameroon.

Tales of the tourney are pretty nasty, difficult to believe as most of them sound like mere ear-tickling fantasy, but they are some of the things that make this tournament the best.

Cameroonweb.com takes a closer look at the role played by magic and logic in this sensational championship that keeps many people in villages and towns busy as they watch the tourney.

There have been situations of players refusing to shake hands before a match, a team not using the main entrance into the field, a player carrying an egg while playing, teams sleeping in the cemetery, use of FCFA 5, of salt and rice to have the upper hand or neutralise the opponent, among others.

The use of magic in football games during this tourney is rife around the country, especially in the Southwest Region and the Northwest Region, where many believe real magic comes from.

Recently, in a tournament in Donga-Mantung Division, a team lost a game as a result of the fact that they arrived two hours after the game. According to our source, this team had travelled all the way from their base only to get confused when they were just about 500 metres from the field.

The team packed their bus and could only come out of their trance hours after the game had been forfeited to their opponent. Also, the same thing happened in another tourney in Noni where a team also went into trance.

Meanwhile, inter-quarter tournaments in Menchum Division are well known for the use of talismans in games to get victory. In Wum, matches are played, sometimes with almost a bag of salt poured on the pitch by a team, believing it will subdue the magic of their opponent.

They have been complaints from players that sometimes their nipples bleed as they are playing. The people there believe that when two teams meet that both have strong magic, they is always a heavy downpour. Teams, at times, consult their witch-doctors to prepare their ball and to confuse the match officials not to use their opponent’s ball during the game.

Some players play while carrying an egg, others with talisman in their socks, boots or tied around their waist to make them overshadow their opponent. In Ndop, a team had to pass inside the bush after suspecting that their opponent had put something on the road that will subdue their power if they pass over it.

Recently, some players of a team from Buea who travelled to Kumba for a knockout stage, refused to use the magic provided to them by their President. The players told the President that they will rely on their talent and team spirit to beat their opponent. Unfortunately for the players, they were thrashed.

When they approached the President after their defeat for transport fare to return to Buea, he told them to take their money from ‘team spirit’.

In Buea, two teams that were to play each other coincidentally went to the same native doctor. After discovering what had happened, one of the teams decided to drink Guinness to boost their play, while the other drank Malta Guinness to subdue the strength of their opponent. At the end of the match, the team that drank Malta Guinness won 1-0.

Some players, teams and witch-doctors are well known in some villages for their strong belief in magic in football.

However, there are two contrasting schools of thought as to whether magic in football works or not. One perceived forms of magic as are merely adopted and enacted to give a side or player a psychological advantage over an opponent who believes in its might.

Meanwhile, another school of thought believes that juju might exist, but its potency is severely restricted by several other factors, mostly physical and physiological in nature, thus explaining why it fails sometimes.

In all, due to the use of magic or juju in some villages during this tourney, some traditional rulers always caution their subjects not to put huge financial prizes as they know the risk involved.