YAOUNDE: Cameroon’s prospects of hosting the 2019 African Nations Cup has been thrown into even further doubt after FIFA’s appointment of a normalisation committee to run the local football federation writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Cameroon lost its unofficial ‘protected status’ within the world football federation after Issa Hayatou was deposed as African confederation president, an election defeat earlier this year which also cost him his vice-presidency of the international governing body.

Doubt about the country’s capacity to host the African finals in two years’ time has been increasingly steadily despite assurances from both the Cameroon federation and the country’s leader, Paul Biya.

Morocco’s recent statement of intent to bid for the 2026 World Cup has been considered as, more realistically, an expression of willingness to take over the expanded Nations Cup in 2019.

A FIFA statement said:

The Bureau of the FIFA Council has today, 23 August 2017, decided to appoint a normalisation committee for the Cameroonian Football Association (FECAFOOT) in accordance with art. 14 par. 1a) and art. 8 par. 2 of the FIFA Statutes. 

This decision comes in connection with the confirmation by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) of the decision of the “Chambre de Conciliation et d’Arbitrage du Comité Olympique et Sportif du Cameroun” (CCA/CNOSC) to annul the electoral process leading to the election of the current FECAFOOT executive committee in 2015 and following recent failed attempts by FIFA to reconcile the football stakeholders in Cameroon and overcome the current impasse.

The committee’s mandate will include the following tasks:

  • To run the daily affairs of FECAFOOT;
  • To draft new statutes in consultation with all stakeholders and in compliance with FIFA’s Statutes and standards as well as mandatory national law;
  • To review the statutes of the regional and departmental leagues and ensure their alignment with the FECAFOOT statutes;
  • To identify the delegates of the FECAFOOT general assembly and of the regional and departmental leagues;
  • To organise and conduct elections of a new FECAFOOT executive committee.

The normalisation committee will be composed of an adequate number of members to be identified by a joint FIFA and CAF mission scheduled to take place very shortly.

The committee will act as an electoral committee and none of its members will be eligible for any of the open positions in the elections.

The specified period of time during which the normalisation committee shall perform its functions shall expire no later than 28 February 2018.

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