Court Of Arbitration For Sport Cuts FECAFOOT President, Samuel Eto’o Fils, To Size

CRISIS IN FECAFOOT:

Court Of Arbitration For Sport Cuts FECAFOOT President, Samuel Eto’o Fils, To Size

Eto’o’s biggest weakness as FECAFOOF President is the constant and flagrant violation of the Federation’s texts

The controversial issues that sparked the conflict between Samuel Eto’o and Guibal Gatama, that FECAFOOT does not want to talk about

Were the Vice Presidents of FECAFOOT elected as the Constitution demands, or they were appointed by Eto’o?

How Guibal Gatama, was illegally dismissed from the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, and reinstated by CAS

FECAFOOT suffers another humiliation for cowardly giving in to the doctrine of Eto’o’s infallibility

From all indications, the biggest weakness of the African football legend, Samuel Eto’o Fils, as President of the Cameroon Football Federation commonly known by the French acronym, FECAFOOT, is the non – respect of texts, or better still, the violation of the Federation’s Constitution. This is contradictory of a man who used to accuse his predecessors of “amateurism”.
This is also a contradiction by the President of FECAFOOT, who while addressing club presidents at a meeting in Yaounde recently, warned them against the violation of texts. The question is whether the FECAFOOT President as leader is teaching by example, or it is the policy of, “Do what I say and not what I do”. But the fact is that when a leader, or to be precise the President of FECAFOOT, does not respect the texts of the Federation, he has NO MORAL AUTHORITY to warn club presidents against the violation of texts.
Also, the one question that definitely comes to the mind of any keen observer on the repeated violation of FECAFOOT’s texts by Eto’o since he became the Federation’s President, is why he does that? This is because if one looks at most of the cases where he has been accused of flagrant violation of the Federation’s texts, one would see that he was not under any pressure to do what he did. That is, he was not pushed by pressure or certain circumstances to violate the texts. There are many situations he would have simply avoided.

Does Being A Legend, Being Rich, Puts Somebody Above The Constitution?

Perhaps what has been happening is that being a football legend, being wealthy, having many fans still suffering from ‘Eto’omania’, and being surrounded by ‘worshippers’ whose real objective is to grab money from him, has unfortunately made Eto’o to erroneously think that his status in society puts him above the Constitution of FECAFOOT. This can be seen in the fact when Eto’o as President of FECAFOOT, is accused of any wrong doing, he and his men instead talk of how he (Eto’o) is a football legend, how he is rich, how he is popular. Anybody who makes any criticism of Eto’o’s management of FECAFOOT is said to be a jealous and hungry man indirectly looking for ways to get some money from Eto’o.
But the fact is that since Samuel Eto’o became FECAFOOT President, the Federation has lost almost all cases at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, as well as at the world governing football body, FIFA. This reality should bring Eto’o to reason before it is too late. Most of those around him are in reality not helping him or doing him any real good. Rather, they are misleading him.

The Conflict With Guibal Gatama

Meanwhile the first serious conflict which Samuel Eto’o had as President of FECAFOOT after been voted into office on December 11, 2021, sparked off the very next month, that is in January 2022, over alleged violation of texts. The conflict was with one of the members of the new Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, Guibal Gatama, a senior journalist and publisher of one the major newspapers in Cameroon, ‘L’Oeil du Sahel’, as well as proprietor of Radio Sahel in Maroua, and a number of other businesses. Guibal is as well as the leader of a pressure group of the Grand North, known as ’10 million Nordists’.
Guibal Gatama in January addressed a correspondence to the President of FECFOOT, Samuel Eto’o Fils. The correspondence was received at FECAFOOT on January 22, 2022, with the FECAFOOT stamp showing that it was No. 0394. The subject matter of Guibal Gatama’s correspondence was: ‘Respect de Nos Statuts’, that is, “Respect of Our Statute”, meaning the Statute or Constitution of FECAFOOT.
The first paragraph of Guibal Gatama’s correspondence read: ‘En ma qualite de membre du Comite Executif de la FECAFOOT, je me permets, Monsieur le President, par ces lignes, de vous exprimer mes vivre enquietudes pour l’illegalite de certain actes pris par le Comite d’Urgance depuis notre election par l’Assemblee Generale elective de 11 Decembre 2021”. Guibal in that first paragraph said he was writing to the President of FECAFOOT in his capacity as a member of the Executive Committee of the Federation, to express his deep concern about certain illegal acts that had been taken by the Emergence Committee, since their election by the Elective General Assembly on December 11, 2023.

The Emergency Committee

Worth noting first of all, that shortly after coming to office, the new President of FECAFOOT created a ‘Comite d’Urgence’, that is an Emergency Committee, to run the affairs of the Federation. An Emergency Committee which is comprised of less than 10 members is a much smaller structure than the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT which is comprised of 20 members. The creation of the Emergency Committee by Eto’o, sort of sidelined the newly elected Executive Committee of FECAFOOT.
Eto’o rushed to create the Emergency Committee on the pretext that the FECAFOOT that his predecessor, Seidou Mbombo Njoya left behind, was so broken that it needed an emergency operation to put it back on its feet. However, the concern of Guibal Gatama was not about the controversial decision to create the Emergency Committee. His concern rather was on the composition of the committee, or better still the legality and legitimacy of some of the members.

The Vice Presidents Of FECAFOOT

According to FECAFOOT’s Constitution, all the four Vice Presidents of FECAFOOT are elected. That is, they are all supposed to be elected. However it is not the General Assembly of FECAFOOT that elect the Vice Presidents as happens with the election of the President. Rather, the General Assembly votes the President of the Federation and the other 19 members of the Executive Committee. According to the text, after the elections of the President and the 19 other members of the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, the total of 20 members of the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, are then supposed to sit and elect the four Vice Presidents from amongst them.
In realty the election organized to elect the four Vice Presidents of FECAFOOT is more of a formality, because generally members of the Executive Committee at that very early stage are supporters of the President. And so in most or even all cases, the four candidates or nominees in the election for the posts of Vice Presidents, are the President’s candidates. So there is no reason for the President of the FECAFOOT to be afraid to call for a meeting of the Executive Committee to elect the Vice Presidents. Often the election of the Vice Presidents of FECAFOOT, takes place a day or two after the FECAFOOT Elections.

Were Samuel Eto’o’ s Vice Presidents, Elected ?

According to Guibal Gatama and a number of other members of the FECAFOOT, the four Vice Presidents of Eto’o’s FECAFOOT, were not elected. Rather he appointed them, in flagrant violation of the FECAFOOT Constitution. Guibal Gatama recalled in the correspondence he addressed to the President of FECAFOOT in January 2022, that at the end of the FECAFOOT Elections on December 11, 2021, the new President of the Federation, Samuel Eto’o, told members of the new Executive Committee of which he was one, that a meeting would be convened in the days ahead, for the election of Vice Presidents.
But Guibal was scandalized that what instead happened, was that a day or two later, some names were floated as the new Vice Presidents of FECAFOOT. The names were as follows: 1st Vice President – Celine Mendomo Eko. 2nd Vice President – Boubakari Bello. 3rd Vice President– Authur Djampir. 4th Vice President – Henry Njalla Quan Jr. They were appointed by Eto’o.

Violation Of The Text By Emergency Committee

Meanwhile in his correspondence to the FECAFOOT President in January 2022, Guibal Gatama cited Article 49.1 on the composition of an Emergency Committee of the Federation, noting that the Vice Presidents of FECAFOOT are members. But he reminded Eto’o that after their election on December 11, 2021, he said a meeting of the Executive Committee was to be convened to elect the Vice Presidents, but that since then no such meeting had taken place. Yet there were people sitting in the Emergency Committee as Vice Presidents of FECAFOOT.
Guibal Gatama thus argued that in such a situation there was a problem of legality with the decisions taken by the Emergency Committee, as well as the acts carried out by the Committee, because the four FECAFOOT members that were sitting in the Committee as Vice Presidents of the Federation, were not elected. Guibal told Eto’o that he could not understand why he had so far not convened a meeting of the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT to vote the Vice Presidents of the Federation , who would definitely be persons of his choice, considering that members of the new EXCO were all on his side.

Another Serious Issue Of Violation Of Text

Meanwhile there was yet another serious problem of violation of FECAFOOT Constitution by the President of the Federation, Samuel Eto’o, which the outspoken member of the Executive Committee of the Federation, Guibal Gatama , also separately raised. Eto’o authorized his friend and Bassa brother, Benjamin Didier Banlock, whom he brought back to the Federation as Secretary General , to start signing cheques, whereas the appointment had not yet been validated by the Executive Committee of the Federation as demanded by the Constitution,
As the story goes, when the African Nations Cup, AFCON, kicked off in Cameroon in early January 2022, FECAFOOT President, Samuel Eto’o, instructed that each member of the Executive Committee of the Federation be given one million francs CFA. But when Guibal Gatama received his own cheque, he realized that it was signed by Benjamin Didier Banlock that Eto’o had recruited as Secretary General of the Federation. Guibal refused to accept the cheque, arguing that the appointment of Banlock as Secretary General of FECAFOOT, had not yet been validated by the Executive Committee of the Federation, and so he did not have the competence to sign the cheque.

What The Text Says

There, Guibal had a point. True, that the President of FECAFOOT is the authority that recruits workers at the Federation. But the text states that for the five posts with rank of Director at the Federation, which include the post of Secretary General, when the FECAFOOT President recruits somebody for any of the post, the Executive Committee has to validate before the employment becomes valid. Though in reality such validations at FECAFOOT are more of a formality, the text however had to be respected by Eto’o.
Thus, for the FECAFOOT President to had given Benjamin Didier Banlock, the power to start signing cheques, when the file of his recruitment had not yet been presented to the Executive Committee for examination and validation, was a violation of the text by the President of the Federation. Guibal also rightly saw in that act a tacit exhibition of lack of respect for the Executive Committee by Eto’o.
Interestingly enough, Guibal Gatama, a journalist, refused to accept the cheque of one million francs CFA, while all the other members of the Executive Committee, including the four Vice Presidents of FECAFOOT, and Law Professor, Nkou Mvondo Prosper, grabbed their cheques without bothering who signed them.

Marginalisation In Recruitment Of Workers

Another source of the conflict between Guibal and Eto’o, had to do with what the former claimed was the marginalization of Grand North, in the recruitment of workers by the President of FECAFOOT, Samuel Eto’o. It should be recalled that Guibal Gatama is also the leader of the pressure group of the Grand North, known as ’10 million Nordists’.
Guibal, a member of the Eto’o – led Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, courageously stood up to protest against what he said was the marginalization of the Grand North, that is the Adamawa, Far North and North Regions, in the recruitment of workers at FECAFOOT by Eto’o,. But the two Anglophones in the Executive Committee were silent, even though Anglophones were the most marginalized in appointments and recruitments by the new FECAFOOT President.

Samuel Eto’o’s Last Meeting With Guibal Gatama

Meanwhile, another contradiction with Samuel Eto’o is that while he is noted for criticizing other people, he is very intolerant to criticisms. And so it happened that the FECAFOOT President, Samuel Eto’o, instead took the correspondence that Guibal Gatama addressed to him, raising some serious cases of violation of the Constitution of the Federation, as as an attack on his personality. He also instead considered the decision by Guibal Gatama to return the cheque of one million francs CFA to FECAFOOT, as a lack of respect for a ‘high personality’ like him.
These were issues that a wise or matured leader would have easily resolved, considering that the issues of violation of texts that Guibal raised were genuine. A wise leader would have instead recognized the fact that Guibal was not like the others in the Federation’s EXCO. People that would say yes to anything that Eto’o does, whether he was right or wrong, but go behind to criticize him and condemn him. Those were dishonest people.
Meanwhile as typical of Samuel Eto’o, in the meeting he had with Guibal Gatama at FECAFOOT, he spent the time glorifying himself. He talked about his greatness as a footballer, how he won the Champions League with Barca and Inter Millan, how he won CAF awards, how he was rich, and so on and so forth, Guibal told Eto’o that he was his fan when he was playing football, especially when he was at Barca and Inter Millan, including when he played for the national football team. Guibal said he continued to be his fan as a football legend.

Playing Football And Managing FECAFOOT, Are Not The Same

But that said, the outspoken Guibal Gatama told Eto’o in very blunt terms that playing football and managing FECAFOOT is not the same thing. Guibal said he was an elected member of the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, and that he addressed his correspondence to Eto’o as President of FECAFOOT, and not as a football legend. He said their meeting was thus supposed to be on the issues he raised about the non-respect of FECAFOOT’s texts by the Federation’s President.
Guibal Gatama later wrote on his Facebook page that at the meeting, Eto’o instead resorted to intimidation, telling him that he (Guibal) could do nothing to him, and boasted how Cameroonians liked him. “Vous savez, Monsieur Guibal, J’ai les bras longs, de jour comme de nuit”, Guibal quoted Eto as having threatened him.
The expression in the French language of somebody who has long arms (‘longs bras’), is somebody who is highly connected. Somebody who can use his high connections or influence, to get any person he wants, or to do what he wants to do. So Eto’o in telling Guibal Gatama that he was somebody with “long arms at day as a night’, was cautioning Guibal to take note that he was somebody with high connections and great influence, and that if he wants to get Guibal he would do so, no matter where he is, and whether it is in the day or at night. This was how the relationship between Eto’o and Guibal took a turn for the worse.

Guibal Gatama Suspended From Exco

Certainly under pressure by the FECAFOOT President, Samuel Eto’o, the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT at its meeting of February 16, 2022 that held in Limbe, and which was chaired by the President of the Federation, suspended Guibal Gatama for three months, without having listened to his own side of the story. Rather the other members condemned Guibal Gatama on the ‘charge’ that he wrote about the heated encounter he had with Eto’o on his Facebook page, whereas it was an internal affair at FECAFOOT.
But the members of the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT were silent, or they closed their eyes to the real issues or substance of the conflict between Eto’o and Guibal, which was the violation of FECAFOOT texts by Samuel Eto’o, the President of FECAFOOT. Guibal Gatama blasted the decision by the Executive Committee to suspend him, without having his listened to him.
The conflict between Eto’o and Guibal Gatama only degenerated further, as Eto’o’ fighters several times stormed the social media, pouring all sorts of invectives and allegations on the head of Guibal whom they called, Bororo, as if Bororos are sub human beings. It is interesting to note that Guibal Gatama avoided using his media organs in the fight with Eto’o and his men. He limited his reactions and observations to his Facebook page. That is maturity.

Controversial Decision To Dismiss Guibal From Exco

Then the General Assembly of FECAFFOT also committed the same blunder that the Executive Committee had earlier committed, by cowardly adopting a very controversial decision to severely sanction Guibal Gatama, in order to please the FECAFOOT President, Samuel Eto’o. The General Assembly of FECAFOOT at its ordinary meeting held in Douala on August 27, 2022, chaired by the Federation’s President, Samuel Eto’o Fils, declared Guibal Gatama dismissed from the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, without also having listened to him.
Resolution No. 14 that was contained in the final communiqué of the ordinary session of the General Assembly of FECAFOOT which held on August 27, 2022 in Douala, read: “The General Assembly unanimously decides to dismiss Mr Guibal Gatama from the Executive Committee”. That was all, No reason given for the dismissal.

Guibal Files Case At Court of Arbitration For Sports

But the decision to dismiss Guibal Gatama from Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, only made things more worse as he prepared a case file against the President of FECAFOOT, Samuel Eto’o, and the Federation, travelled to Switzerland, and filed it at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, CAS, on November 21, 2022. In the case file, Guibal Gatama, insisted that his dismissal from FECAFOOT was illegal. He also raised a number of complaints of alleged flagrant violation of FECAFOOT texts by the President of the Federation, Samuel Eto’o.
The case first came up at the Court of Arbitration for Sport at Lausanne in Switzerland on June 9, 2023. Suffice to say in its ruling on the matter delivered on August 15, 2023, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, annulled the resolution that was adopted by the General Assembly of FECAFOOT on August 27, 2022, dismissing Guibal Gatama from the Executive Committee. The annulment of the FECAFOOT decision by the Court means that Guibal Gatama has been r readmitted or reinstated as member of the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT.
The Court also declared that both Guibal Gatama and FECAFOOT would bear the court charges, with the former paying 20 % and the latter paying 80 %. The Court as well ordered FECAFOOT to pay Guibal Gatama the sum of 5000 Swiss francs, as compensation for the court charges he has to pay.

The Issue Would Have Been Resolved

Meanwhile as earlier opined, the conflict between Samuel Eto’o and Guibal Gatama that ended up at the Court of Arbitration for Sport at Lausanne is an issue that would have been resolved by the two through dialogue, since the month of January 2022. As the new President of FECAFOT and thus the new leader of the Federation, Samuel Eto’o would have handled this issue in a different way. But his ego would not allow him do it. Guibal Gatama is a fighter, a courageous or daredevil journalist and newspaper publisher, and an activist for justice. As leader of ’10 million Nordistes’, Guibal has had confrontations even with some members of Government and senior Government officials, but has remained what he is.
That is definitely not the type of person that Eto’o can use his popularity as a football legend, or his wealth, to intimidate to stay silent. Eto’o would have realized this, when in January 2022, Guibal Gatama, unlike other members of the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, refused to accept the cheque of 1,000,000 FCFA on grounds that the appointment of the Secretary General of FECAFOT who signed the cheques, had not yet by validated by the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT, and that he was thus not competent to sign FECAFOOT cheques.

Court Judgment Cuts Samuel Eto’

As earlier observed, the flagrant violation of FECAFOOT texts by Eto’o, is not because he is under pressure or what. Guibal Gatama wrote that: ‘Chaque fois qui’il fallait pietiner le bons sens et tordre le cou aux texts de la Federation, il se retranche toujours derniere cette formule caracteristique de certitude que les lois son faites pour autres. Pas pour lui. Il disait toujours, ‘J assume’ “.That each time that Eto’o had to violate the texts of the Federation, he would give the impression that laws are meant for others, and not for him. And that Eto’o would always say, “I assume’, meaning that he takes responsibility for violating the texts.
This is a clear testimony of the observation that many people have made, that money and fame as an African football legend, have seemingly made Samuel Eto’o to think that his is above the law, and that he can do and undo the way he likes. But the CAS ruling of August 15, 2023 has cut Eto’o to size, that even if he can do and undo in Cameroon, it is not like that outside Cameroon or in normal society, and that money and fame are not everything in this world.

WHAT A SHAME!!!

Eto’o wanted to use Guibal Gatama’s case to show how powerful he was, and that any member of FECAFOOT that dares him will be kicked out. Now CAS has ordered the reinstatement of Guibal Gatama into the Executive Committee of FECAFOOT. Eto’o and his ego. What a shame to Eto’o and the other Exco members! The blind supporters, persons suffering from “Eto’omania’, who thought that Eto’o was alpha and omega, that was at his feet, were dumbfounded, following the victory of Guibal Gatama over Eto’o and FECAFOOT.
The August 15 ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, is a also a humiliation and a lesson to FECAFOOT, that has been so cowardly supporting and accepting anything that the Federation’s Federation says, whether right or wrong, because his name is Samuel Eto;’o Fils.