By Eric Tataw – Thursday June 20, 2019.
The Cameroon national football team, dubbed Indomitable Lions has refused to travel to the African Nations Cup competition unless they’re paid 20million per player, National Telegraph has been told.
Players insist they must be paid 20million F CFA as stipends before they can take off for Egypt. Veteran player, Samuel Eto’o is also said to have intervened but players are still on the demand, said a source.
The official start for the African Cup of Nations is Friday June 21, 2019 but, officials are still negotiating with players, National Telegraph has been told.
Reports say authorities are doing everything possible to solve the problem before 6:45PM, Thursday June 20, 2019 which is official departure time for the team.
Cameroon is drawn in group F alongside; Ghana, Guinea Bissau and Benin. Cameroon was also just recently stripped off hosting rights of this year’s event for security and infrastructure reasons before Egypt grabbed the opportunity.
Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions have been unruly with government efforts to contain an armed conflict. Reports say several billions of the Cameroonian currency is used to foil the rebellion.
Pundits now say this might have been the reason why the government is probably unable to pay stipends for its players. Many other sporting events have hitherto been postponed.
Unrest in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions began in October 2016 as a disagreement in language but government mismanaged it, turning it into an armed conflict with a demand by majority of Anglophones in the North West and South West for a separate state called Ambazonia.