Taking a Crack at Professionalism

The Mtn Elite One championship will kick off on the 27 of September with newly promoted As Matelot of Douala playing against Danay FC of Yagoua. The rest of the teams will commence play the day after,which is Sunday the 28 of September. The competition is set to embark on a course towards professionalism to keep in line with requirements from Fifa(the world soccer watchdog).A number of steps were taken to get this process started, the first of which was to cut down the number of teams participating in the league from 18 teams last year to 14 this year. Five teams from last year dropped to the lower division with three teams , Panthere of Bangante being the third moving up to join the non relegated.

There are quite a few problems though in trying to call this professionalism.I would start first with the amount of money that is being paid to the players. The lower figure has been set to somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000 fCFA. I would let you figure out for yourself whether that is enough pay for a professional soccer player or not. 450fCFA is the equivalent of a US dollar. The coaches are set to make about 150,000fCFA.

The next problem would be the one of stadiums to play the games in. Newly promoted side Panthere of Bangante and Danay FC of Yagoua are said to have stadia problems. Fecafoot(the soccer governing body in the country) plans to solve this problem by having matches played in stadiums that it deems safe in terms of playing surface and security for the visiting teams and spectators. There are in my opinion only two decent stadiums that meet the criteria of fan safety and decent playing surface. The Stade Ahmadou Ahidjo in Yaounde, the nations capital and the Omnisport stadium in Garoua were current champions and the dominant team in the last 7 years or so Cotonsport of Garoua plays. A third stadium in Douala, the economic capital of the country was closed last year for renovation work to take place. There is no word on how far the work being carried out is going. What I do know is that the stadium would not be ready for the three Douala based teams that are to use it as their home base. As Matelot,Astres and Union ,all based in Douala would have to play their home games in the famous Stade Mbappe Leppe. You need to take a look at this place if you are in the country, just out of curiousity. Slidding tackles are competedly out of the question. That is the least of the problems though. The stadium(if you can call it that)had been around since the early 1960s. The first time that I went inside the place, I did not even think that it was safe for pick-up play let alone division one soccer play.

The Republic of Cameroon is ranked number 14 in the fifa recent ranking and there are recognised as one of the better soccer playing nations in the world.They were recently runners-up in the African cup of nations. They have won the said competition four times(1984,1988,200,2002) and they have participated in five world cup finals, making it all the way to the quarter finals in 1990.I am sure that Fifa has representatives that go around the different nations to promote the good game of soccer. As least I would think that they do visit the stadiums where their top ranking footballing nations do play. CAF's(the confederation of African Football)president is a Cameroonian in the name if Issa Hayatou. I wonder whether the guy had ever being to inspect the stadiums in the Country. Not just the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium. A bit of renovation work was done on this one and it looks decent to play in.Nobody is asking for a St James Park play ground in the country. Just something decent if the league wants to move towards professionalism.I understand that the country had other important problems but where is the money that had been allocated for sports infrastructures. I understanding that the Chinese dish out some aid to developing nations.I am sure they would be happy to build and donate a few stadiums as part of their humanitary assistance.

There is a British company that recently signed a five year contract to have exclusive rights to prodcast of the Mtn Elite one matches. The general public is not happy at all with the exlusivity of the rights. There are a few local TV stations in the country that could show some highlights of games. I learnt that they are forbidden from doing so.The name of the British company is GBS. I know the Cameroon football government body and the clubs with games involved in the TV coverage would benefit from this. The question that I have is how Gbs makes a profit from this deal. The big names in Cameroon soccer all play their football out of the country. There is one club, Cotonsport of Garoua that everybody agrees is being ran decently. That have basically dominated the local game for the the last 7 years(winning the league seven straight times). Gbs for the moment would have only two decent stadiums that they would want people out of the country to be able to see. The rest of the matches, I have no idea who would be interesting in viewing matches played on plain earth in the majority of cases in stadiums that are half empty. The only good that can come out of this is that the rest of the world gets to see the poor state of the playing grounds and something finally gets done.

This is the list of teams that would play in the Mtn Elite One championship this year. 2008/2009
Cotonsport of Garoua
Canon of Yaounde
Union of Douala
Astre of Douala
As Matelot of Douala
Fovu of Baham
Sable of Batie
Panthere of Bangante
Aigle of Dschang
Mt Cameroon FC of Buea
Tiko United
Danay FC of Yagoua,
University of Ngaoundere
Unisport of Bafang.
Expect Cotonsports to still come out as league champions, with Fovu of Baham,Mt Cameroon of Buea,Union of Douala,Astre of Douala and Canon of Yaounde fighting for second through fourth place.