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| 5-year bans for Cameroon fixers |
1/12/2007 |
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By Martin Etonge
BBC Sport, Yaounde
Cameroonian football has been rocked by the match-fixing scandal
The Cameroon Football Federation (Fecafoot) has handed lengthy bans to two players and five club officials for match-fixing.
One of the clubs involved in the corruption scandal, Mount Cameroon FC Buea, has been relegated from the first to the third division.
Despite several reported corruption scandals in Cameroon, this is the first time Fecafoot''s Disciplinary Committee has reached such a landmark decision.
Two Racing Bafoussam players, Pierre Youmsi and Noël Takoudjou, have been banned for five years after being found guilty of receiving money from Mount Cameroon club officials to throw a match between the clubs.
While these bans were extensive, Fecafoot was even more severe on the club officials.
Though an exact amount of money has yet to be mentioned, Racing''s sporting director Emmanuel Fotso and kit manager Nathanaël Tatietse have both been banned for ten years for their part in the bribing scandal.
Chrisanthus Kongnso and Ngu Gorden Nwambo, Mount Cameroon''s first and second vice-president respectively, were also handed ten-year bans.
Meanwhile, Joseph Victor Kouahawa, a former technical staff member for both teams, has been suspended from football activities for ten years.
On 3 September, the last day of play in the 2006 season, Mount Cameroon needed victory to stay in division one against Racing, who had already lost their place in the national first division league.
Mount Cameroon won 1-0, but talk of a suspected fix abounded and another club, Impôt FC Yaounde, reported the matter to Fecafoot.
Impôt FC stand to benefit from Mount Cameroon''s relegation, as they fill the gap left by Mount Cameroon.
Yet the matter may not be over as Mount Cameroon officials have appealed, arguing that evidence of corruption was not demonstrated by the Disciplinary Committee.
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