President Biya Orders Resumption of Suspended Cameroon’s Professional Leagues

Cameroon's head of state, Paul Biya, and his Prime Minister, Philemon Yang, have called for "the immediate resumption of professional football competitions," whose suspension was announced Thursday night by the Cameroon Professional Football League (LFPC) for lack of financial means ".

According to APA, a statement issued by the Cameroon Professional Football League, said that the return to normalcy comes after this return to normal comes a 45 million FCFA advance of the Cameroon Football Federation (FECAFOOT), 15 in cash and the rest by bank transfer.

Thus, the 30th and 25th days of D1 and D2, initially scheduled on July 10, 2018 respectively, have been reprogrammed for the same dates and venues.

Our source however reported that behind the brief suspension of these competitions, hides a crisis between the Cameroon Professional Football League (LFPC) and FECAFOOT, following the retention by the FECAFOOT and without explanation, a good deal of the federal subsidy for the running of the national championships, i.e. 255 million FCFA out of a total envelope of 410 million FCFA.

For the 2018-2019 season, the League announced a budget of 2,230 billion FCFA of which 910 million was going to come from endowment from the State and part of it from the sponsorship deal with the Mobile Telecommunication Networks company (MTN).

At the end of last April, the said sponsor announced the revision of its contract with LFPC, in the 2019 season 2019, which revision TCR learnt was going to include the reduction of its contribution from 610 to 210 million FCFA.

It also stated that it was going to withdraw from the sponsorship at the end of 2018-2019 season after having invested, according to its services, a total of 1.430 billion FCFA into the organization of the D1 and D2 championships as well as over 7 billion FCFA in the organization of national competitions between 2002 and 2013.