2024-02-13 10:11:34
It’s a real earthquake that is shaking the African futsal planet. While the final phase of the 2024 African Cup of Nations is fast approaching, Cameroon has simply been excluded from the competition by CAF. A thunderclap which deprives the Cameroonian selection, double title holder, of a historic treble and offers an unexpected ticket to Mauritania. Explanations.
CAN 2024: Cameroon offside, Mauritania drafted
The announcement came like a hammer: “for violation of rules and regulations”, Cameroon is deprived of CAN 2024 futsal by the African Football Confederation. Understand: for not having appealed in time the suspension of the selection pronounced at the end of 2019 for obscure reasons, the Indomitable Lions are definitively excluded from the most prestigious continental competition.
A catastrophe for the lions, who aimed for nothing more and nothing less than the hat-trick in Morocco after their coronations in South Africa in 2016 and 2018. The pill is all the more bitter as it is Mauritania, Continental Little Thumb, which recovers the place left vacant. Enough to offer the 171st FIFA nation its very first qualification for a CAN final phase, all categories combined.
Initial suspension from Cameroon: a mysterious motive
To fully understand this earthquake, we need to go back a few months. In October 2019, to everyone’s surprise, CAF decided to suspend Cameroon from all African futsal competitions for an indefinite period.
A warning shot as radical as it was unexpected, the real reasons for which have never been publicly revealed. Were these administrative problems? Unpaid contribution arrears? A dispute with the Cameroonian Football Federation? The vagueness remains. Still, Cameroon suffered this sanction with serious consequences at the time…
Towards an aborted appeal procedure?
Because according to CAF, the Cameroonian leaders simply did not appeal this provisional suspension in time to obtain its cancellation or reduction. A crippling breach synonymous with automatic and definitive exclusion from the next CAN scheduled for 2024.
An official version which nevertheless leaves some skeptical on the other side of the continent. Some observers rather evoke the shadow of arbitrariness and of a decision “ policy » taken in the upper echelons of the Pan-African body. Difficult in these conditions to draw definitive conclusions…
Regardless, it is a real earthquake for the African futsal planet. Deprived of its Cameroonian king, the continental elite are all the more open to a few surprises during the tournament scheduled for April 2024 in Morocco. Unless the Indomitable Lions roar again behind the scenes to restore an injustice? Suspense…