Grave Injustices - Soccer Tournament, Part II

This soccer tournament, le Championnat de l'Excellence (last year it was the Championship of Hope, l'Espoir), has turned into a crucible of everything I like and dislike about Cameroon.  There have been fights, suspensions, fines, countless yellow and red cards, all of which culminated in a five-day suspension of all games.  This all happened in the first two weeks.

 

Just a little synopsis of how the soccer tournament is set up before continuing on with the tales of misdeeds.  There are eight teams that have to pay a 20.000 cfa entry fee, plus a 1.000 cfa inscription fee.  Each team plays each other twice in two rounds, the first the "aller" and the second the "retour."  Before each match, each team has to pay a 500 cfa referee fee, of which there are three for every game (they split the 1.000 cfa three ways), the central referee on the field and two line judges patrolling the sides.  There are financial penalties for receiving cards, 200 cfa for a yellow and 500 for a red that have to be paid before the next game.  In addition to these penalties, there are licenses that every player has to have with a 4x4 photo (centimeters) that costs 700 cfa each for insurance purposes (for the tournament to cover its ass in case something happens, and also a way for Ministry of Sports officials in Garoua to get a piece) and to cut down on "mercenaries," players from outside of Lagdo, which each team is allowed three to five, I'm not sure which.  I'm telling you all this so you understand that this is an expensive tournament for a team to enter, even if it is usually a wealthier-than-average guy who is the financier, and even with the prize money for the first place finisher, the team president will likely not make any profit.  So, the only real reason they dispense so much argent is for The Glory.

 

Despite this tournament of excellence being open to the entire arrondissement, it only consists of teams from Lagdo Centre, Djippordé (the village by the lake a few kilometers from Lagdo), and I think one team from Ouro Kessoum, a village outside of Lagdo on the paved road a few kilometers away.  It's just not feasible for people in the faraway villages to field a team, and because most of the wealth in the arrondissement is concentrated in Lagdo and Djippordé, this tournament is basically just amongst some quartiers in Lagdo and our neighbors.

 

The suspension of all games came 10 days after the tournament started.  There are two games scheduled for each day during the aller and retour, and on this day, both of the games disintegrated over disputed calls, the overarching theme of all the tournament's problems.  During the first game, with the score 1-0 near the end of the second half, Étoile FC received a penalty kick by an obvious foul in the goal box.  After Étoile equalized, Monde Arabe's supporters stormed on to the field and harassed the referee until time ran out.  (By supporters, I mean a handful of men, ranging from the ages of 25-45, then a sea of children, young boys, that stream onto the field whenever anything happens, which in Lagdo means when a goal is scored or when a team's supporters storm on to the field to harass a referee.  When that happens, the crowd of people moves across the field like a swarm of bees.)

 

During the second game, an actual referee error caused Danay FC to stomp their feet and refuse to play out the game like spoiled children.  After a bad throw-in by Danay was flagged by the line judge, and which Barça quickly recovered, the central referee didn't see that the line judge had called it, so play continued.  Danay didn't even recognize there was a missed call, and Barça scored on the ensuing play, of course.   It was only until after the play ended that anyone realized that the ref missed the call.  Immediately, at the kickoff to restart play, Danay's coach yelled at his players to kick the ball off the field, which they dutifully did, and refuse to play because of the grave injustice of the missed call.  The goal that Barça scored was an equalizer, so the score was only 1-1, and there were more than twenty minutes left in the second half.  So the game finished out with the players on both teams standing on the field and groups of Danay coaches, reserves, and whoever decided to come on down to the sidelines animatingly yelling at each other, despite agreeing, about the grave injustices inflicted upon them, and with the ball nesting out of bounds near my table.

 

A great day for Lagdo football.