FECAFOOT Case: When the FIFA forces the Cameroon government to respect the law

In deciding on the creation of a new normalization committee, FIFA is forcing the state to respect the decision to cancel FECAFOOT elections.

The announcement yesterday, August 23, 2017, by FIFA of the creation of a new Normalization Committee at FECAFOOT, sounded like a thunderbolt in the hectic sky of Cameroonian football. In a statement published on its website, the instance headed by Gianni Infantino indicates that "this decision is linked on the one hand to the confirmation by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) of the judgment of the Chamber of Conciliation and Arbitration Of the Cameroonian Olympic and Sports Committee, which canceled the electoral procedure leading to the election in 2015 of the current Executive Committee of FECAFOOT and, on the other hand, to the recent unsuccessful attempts by FIFA to bring the different Stakeholders of the Cameroonian football and thus get out of the crisis".

The election of the Executive Committee on September 28, 2015 is canceled. Tombi A Roko Sidiki is no longer the president of FECAFOOT. A real camouflage for the Cameroonian government that had already decided on the issue. After attempting to bring the various protagonists together, the government decided to take up the cause of the executive who ran until Wednesday under Tombi A Roko.

After the decision of cancellation of these elections, taken on November 12, 2015 by the Chamber of Conciliation and Arbitration (CCA), the Minister of Sports and Physical Education had signed a communiqué dubbing Tombi A Roko. Arguing that the CCA had violated the law of Cameroon, the communiqué of Bidoung Mpkatt noted "the validity of the electoral process to the Fécafoot, in the regional and departmental leagues".

An act of the government challenged by the protesters among whom Joseph Antoine Bell and Abdouraman Hamadou. The latter decided in the wake of the case to bring the case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport. On February 27, 2017, the CAS confirmed the decision to cancel the elections. A decision that FIFA wants to respect by setting up another Normalization Committee four years after a first directed by Joseph Owona.

A question remains? How will the government of Cameroon behave? To enforce this decision and therefore to decline or start an arm to make and run the risk of seeing the country of the 4 times champions of Africa suspended by FIFA? The second hypothesis seems unlikely given the deadlines that await Cameroon, including the 2018 World Cup qualifiers and the organization of the 2019 AfCON.

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