WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : COMMENTARY : Cameroon Doesn’t Have It in the Bag

Hooligan activity is reported to be down in this World Cup, unless you count what goes on behind closed doors at Cameroon team headquarters.

In Indomitable Lion news Friday:

--After much debate, team members consented to play Brazil despite a no-show by the much-anticipated “man with a suitcase,” who was to deliver $400,000--presumably in crisp, unmarked bills--to Palo Alto to ward off a threatened Lion wildcat strike.

--The Cameroon soccer federation ordered Coach Henri Michel to bench outspoken goalkeeper Joseph-Antoine Bell, the Cameroonian version of a player representative and alleged ringleader of the boycotters.

--In a heated team meeting, players demanded Bell be kept in the lineup. As the minutes wound down before lineup cards were due, Michel accedes to his players’ wishes, defying the federation edict and risking his future employment.

--Players decided to dedicate the game to Michel.

--Bell said, “The politicians are trying to keep me down. They think I want to be a politician. They want to kill me in the crib.”

--Team captain Stephen Tataw blasted referee Arturo Brizio Carter of Mexico for behaving “as if he wasn’t conscious in what he was doing” and for “break(ing) down the morale of the Cameroon team.” After an impassioned minute-long speech before the international press, Tataw concluded: “I think it is not nice.”

--Picking up on the same theme, Bell accused FIFA of rigging the World Cup, asserting that “FIFA wants to have Brazil go to the final.”

--Roger Milla, the Pele of Cameroon, was asked by a U.S. journalist to comment on the “financial distractions” facing his team and exploded into an expletive-ridden tirade that the French interpreter, a blushing middle-aged woman, initially refused to translated.

--After much prodding, the interpreter informed the U.S. journalist that Milla has told him to “quit busting my (chops)” and his virility has just been assailed by the most famous athlete in Cameroon.

--Another player, agreeing to speak only under the condition of anonymity, said that because of what happened to Bell, “the players are frightened to talk about (the salary dispute) anymore. We don’t have any problems with the team. All the problems are outside the team.” As he spoke, the player flipped his identification tag over, shielding his name from the press.

(Sidenote: Cameroon loses soccer game to Brazil, 3-0.)

Is this a fun bunch of guys or what?

The Indomitable In-Disarray Lions remain the World Cup leaders in airing their dirty laundry in public, probably because they can’t afford the dry cleaning. Nothing ever happens to them in private. Whatever they do, they do in full world view.

Why? Well, for one, it’s a lot cheaper than Internet.

Only Cameroon would threaten to kidnap a World Cup game and hold it for ransom. Claiming they haven’t been paid for two months, the Lions demanded payment up front this week before agreeing to suit up against Brazil.

After Cameroon’s sports minister, Bernard Massoua, turned up at the team’s training camp in Moraga on Wednesday with a suitcase carrying $535,000, the Lions shook their heads and said, “Not enough.” This prompted the president of the country, Paul Biya, to intervene. Biya guaranteed the players an additional $400,000 in exchange for their promise to provide Brazil with an opponent at Stanford Stadium on Friday afternoon.

The Lions played, got pounded and later complained that the man did not deliver the goods.

“No, we have not gotten paid,” defender Samuel Ekeme Ndiba said. “A big transaction must take place. Maybe tomorrow.”

Part of the dispute rests in the sorry state of the Cameroon franc. The Lions were paid the same amount for qualifying for the World Cup in 1994 as they were in 1990, but the country’s franc today is worth only half as much as it was four years ago. Thus, the players contend they are entitled to twice as much money.

Michel, who didn’t get to be a World Cup coach without a certain degree of savvy, has a contract that pays him in Swiss francs.

For Bell, this territory is familiar. In the 1990 World Cup, federation officials ordered Bell benched after he demanded more money for the players and the coach of that team, Valery Nepomnyachy, carried out the command.

The incident earned Bell the nickname of “Mandela” among his teammates for being a man unjustly exiled for fighting the good fight.

Cameroon, still winless after two games in Group B, must defeat Russia next Tuesday if it is to advance to the second round.

Will Bell be on the field for that one?

Will any Indomitable Lions be on the field for that one?

The World Cup waits and watches as one very ticked-off crew of soccer players from a small country in Africa continues to give new meaning to the phrase “living out of a suitcase.”