Walter Wilson Nana
Buea, Cameroon
Though the Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon arrived Windhoek, Namibian, Sunday, October 5 2014 to be part of the 9th Female AFCON 2014, being hosted by Namibia, there are reports of issues around match bonuses not yet clear and this may perturb the serenity that is reigning in the den of the Lionesses.
Indomitable Lionesses - will they roar even without the financial motivation.
According to reports gathered so far, since the girls were given FCFA 5 Million by FECAFOOT, being the qualification bonus at the CAF training centre in Mbankomo, Yaoundé, during the third phase of their preparation, there have been total silence on the other bonuses. The Olympic bonus, which is supposed to be paid to the girls before takeoff from Cameroon has not been paid. The girls who were not selected for the Namibian campaign, though they took part in a 3-week training programme, are said to be refunding the FCFA 45,000 given them at the close of the training programme in Cameroon to officials in the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education in Yaoundé. The girls left out in the selection hold that the Olympic bonus per day is FCFA 5,000. So, the latter amount has to be multiplied by all the days they spent at the training camp.
The Lionesses are also raising the worry that their qualification bonus, after the victory over their Senegalese counterparts on June 8 2014 have not been paid by the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education.
From Lusaka, Zambia, where the girls have been fine-tuning their last technical and tactical abilities to Namibia, where they are now, for the final phase of the AFCON, noting has been said about the different bonuses; Olympic bonus, qualification bonus, participation bonus, bonuses for match won, match drawn and match lost. For the professional Lionesses, their club officials have said they will not be paid their salaries for October 2014, since the Female AFCON is not part of the FIFA calendar. These club officials are asking Cameroonian football authorities to pay the players for October 2014. The girls are now asking the question if such worries are handled if they are invited into the national team.
Meanwhile, Celine Eko, the interim President of the Female Football C omission at FECAFOOT on arrival in Lusaka, Zambia before the Lionesses took off to Namibia, was reassuring that the budget for the Namibian campaign has been drawn between FECAFOOT and the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education and subsequently validated by the Prime Minister’s Office. But she was not clear on the amount of money budgeted.
However, some sources have indicated that there is a problem of financial liquidity at the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education, so, the latter has requested FECAFOOT to pre-finance the Namibian outing and when they are back to Cameroon, FECAFOOT will be reimbursed.
With this situation, will the Lionesses be psychologically ready for their AFCON in Namibia? It is said that when a woman is angry, we have to be careful.
The Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon are in Group B of the 2014 Female AFCON, alongside Algeria, Ghana and South Africa.
Here are their first round fixtures:
- 12/10/14: South Africa v Cameroon (16:00, Independence Stadium)
- 12/10/14: Algeria v Ghana (19:00, Independence Stadium)
- 15/10/14: Cameroon v Algeria (16:00, Independence Stadium)
- 15/10/14: Ghana v South Africa (19:00, Independence Stadium)
- 18/10/14: South Africa v Algeria (16:00, Independence Stadium)
- 18/10/14: Cameroon v Ghana (16:00, Sam Nujoma Stadium)
