Cameroon

FOOTBALL IN CAMEROON Cameroon is probably Africa’s most successful footballing nation. The Germans introducedFootball to Cameroon in 1880, although Cameroon’s domestic football teams were not affiliated with the African Football Confederation until after independence in 1960. Since the 1960s Cameroon’s best domestic football teams have had several successes in the African ChampionsCupwinning it for the first time in 1965 and three times during the 1970s. In the 1980s the national team has enjoyed similar success winning the African Nations Cup in 1984 and 1988. Their greatest achievement was reaching the quarterfinal of the 1990 World Cup, an achievement that first put African football on the map. Cameroon also claims to have the mostfamousAfrican football player of all time inRoger Milla. Milla was twice winner of the African Golden Ball and is the oldest player to score in theWorld Cup at the age of 42. STATE OF THE ECONOMY The former French Cameroon and part of British Cameroonmerged in1961to form the present country. The country is reasonably well developed relative to some of its African neighbours owing to its abundance of natural resources that include oil, coca and coffee. The petroleum industry in Cameroon is well advanced with this being developed in the early 1970s. The domestic economy recovered well from the commodity-inducedweaknessin themid1980s. Aftera largely unsuccessful IMF program which followed the devaluation of the CFA Franc in 1995, the authorities have tackled some of the major imbalances in the economy. After the completion of the latest IMF program in 2000, theIMFhas pressed for more reforms such as privatisationandincreasedbudget transparency. In 2001 the economy expanded by around 5%. STATE OF THE NATION Cameroon is one of the better endowed African nations it still suffers from many of the typical problems associated with developing countries such as a generally unfavourable business climate for enterprise, reliance on agriculture (some 43% of the economy), top heavy civil service, and to some degree, political instability. THE 2002 WORLD CUP Known as the “Indomitable Lions”, Cameroon will be competing in their fifth World Cup this year, a record for an African nation. Cameroon has the best record of any African nation in theWorld Cup, with their memorable quarterfinal appearance in 1990, where they lost in extra time to England.Ascurrent holders of the African Nations Cup, together with Nigeria they will be Africa’s best hope of lifting the Trophy in 2002. They have also had recent success by winning the under-23 Olympic gold medal at the 2000 games in Sydney. Unfortunately for Cameroon, they face a tough qualification group, which includes Germany, Ireland and Saudi Arabia. Germany is the clear favourite to win the group and we think Cameroon will struggle to beat Ireland. If Cameroon manages to finish runners up inGroupE, theywould face the winners of Group B, probably Spain. Sadly, we think an appearance in the second round is the best they can hope for. Their star player is Striker Patrick Mborna who currently plays for Serie A team AC Parma and featured in Cameroon’s 1998 campaign in France. Mborna will be in familiar surroundings in Asia, having spent time in the Japanese J-League. Indeed, in his first season in Japan he finished top goal scorer with 25 goals in 28 games, he was the first player to score a hat trick in the J-league and holds the record for the fastest goal (26 seconds). One factor that has worked against Cameroon in the run-up to the finals has been problems keeping hold of a manager. For this World Cup German-born coachWinfried Schafer, the former manager of VfB Stuttgart, will coach them. One thing is for certain, if this year’s Cameroon team play anything like previous efforts in the World Cup they will be great to watch. Previous Appearances: 4 1982, 1990, 1994, 1998