FECAFOOT palaver:

Bell, Abdourahman…‘whitewash’ Bidoung Mkpatt!
The signatories of a communiqué to counter that of the minister of Sport and Physical Education have made known to the public facts which reveal Bidoung Mkpatt as having no authority whatsoever to annul the decision of the Chamber of Arbitration of the National Olympic Committee invalidating the elections at FECAFOOT
By Essan Ekon-Inyam in Yaounde

Abdourahman

Sport and Physical Education minister Ismaël Pierre Bidoung Mkpatt’s annulment of the decision of the Chamber of Arbitration to cancel the FECAFOOT election has not been taken kindly by many football stakeholders in Cameroon.  Three such persons are former Indomitable Lions keeper Joseph Antoine Bell, Etoile Filante of Garoua president Abdourahman Hamadou Babba and a certain Loga.
    In a press communiqué, just like the one issued by the minister to annul the decision, Bell and his friends describe Bidoung Mkpatt’s decision as untimely and illegitimate. Throughout their text, they reveal the minister as someone who has lost his authority completely.
    In effect, the three complainants who signed the two-page communiqué point out the many aspects of injustice as well as the permanent violation of principles and rules of ethics and governance that their opponent’s statement has brought to the fore. To them, the Sport and Physical Education minister only made a semblance of consulting members of the contested bureau of FECAFOOT and of the National Olympic Committee, to give the impression that the decision is consensual. The decision is a one-man show, they cry out.

    To support their view, Bell, Abdourahman and Loga make it clear that they were not consulted on the matter either closely or from afar. Consequently, they contend, the minister’s claim that the prerogative to ensure that sporting federations respect the laws and regulations in force lies exclusively within the competence of the ministry is false.
    “Neither the Law of 15 July 2011 on the organization and promotion of physical and sporting activities nor the decree of 1 October 2012 gives the ministry this exclusive right,” the complainants argue.
    To further show that the minister does not have the competence to cancel or suspend a legal decision, Bell and his men explain that his communiqué is not a unilateral administrative act in the sense of general administrative law. In this wise, they hold, it has no legal effect.
    Citing article 59:1 of Law n°2011/018 of 15 July 2011, the signatories of the new communiqué write: “The decisions of the Chamber of Conciliation and Arbitration can only be contested by the Sport Arbitration Tribunal (TAS) of Lausanne.”
    To Bell and his friends therefore, Minister Bidoung Mkpatt has in all ignorance been induced to error. They regret the fact that the minister’s act is a situation of interference in the functioning of FECAFOOT which is very likely to cause the world football governing body FIFA to intervene for the nth time.