Football Coaching: Are We Despising Our Own?

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Didier Gomes Da Rosa
Football Coaching: Are We Despising Our Own?

With the recent desire for foreign tacticians shown by clubs of the Cameroon Professional League, in its third year of existence, one wonders whether Cameroonian clubs don?t believe there is enough quality in local coaches, to take clubs forward.

The need for foreign expertise demonstrated by League 1 clubs is something that was only witnessed at the national team level where so many Cameroonian nationals were known to be playing second fiddle to foreign coaches, while they are more qualified than them.

Does Cameroon need foreigner coaches to help it grow its football; is the question analysts are asking.

Top football nations in Africa like Ghana, Egypt, Nigeria among others, have turned to rely more on their nationals and home-based coaches and they are yielding the fruit.

But every time a vacant managerial post emerges in Cameroon, names of French, German, Spanish, Belgian and Serbians and so on and so forth, keep coming up.

Worthy of note is the fact that these clubs pay huge sums of money to these foreign coaches, but when it comes to local coaches, they are either owed salaries or given meagre salaries.

   Didier Gomes da Rosa of Coton Sport of Garoua

Didier Gomes da Rosa of Coton Sport of Garoua

Cameroonian coaches are always relegated to the role of “assistant coach” and never considered for promotion when the top chair is vacant? This is the uttermost sense of lack of belief in our potential or does patriotism in sports end in words?

This habit, which has now spread among our top clubs, does not help the future of football at all. We cannot talk of nurturing young, home-grown talent when we are ignoring our own coaches, who have trained them.

This idea of seeking quick gains and not looking at long term returns is why our football has remained stagnant for long.

Our clubs seem to have little or no knowledge of cost effective economics. First of all, our clubs are not too wealthy to hire expatriate coaches. If we went into the nitty-gritty demands from these foreign coaches, you would wonder how our poor clubs actually pay up such huge sums of money and incentives.

Sebastien Roques, Coach of Union Douala
Sebastien Roques, Coach of Union Douala

Foreign coaches are expensive, they have to first adapt and, most importantly, they are not supermen – meaning that they will fail or succeed just as much as the local coaches would.

That is why every now and then, we hear of clubs that have failed to pay up salaries – simply because they agreed to pay astounding millions in wages, yet they know they can’t afford it.

Our football is not that over publicised like the European leagues, for anyone to assume that a foreign coach would easily know which kind of players they are going to be dealing with.

Just like Dennis Lavagne, who came into the national team from an Elite One Club, Coton Sport, this new influx of foreign coaches might also be thinking of climbing the ladder using the same road.

At the national team level, coaches of Cameroonian nationality have only enjoyed the position of interim or assistant coach. The likes of Jean Manga Onguene, Leonard Nseke, Jules Nyongha, Jean-Paul Akono, Jacques C?lestin Songo?o, Thomas Nkono, have all served as interim coaches but are later replaced by foreign coaches that are less qualified than them.

   Ivanovich, Coach of Unisport of Haut Nkam

Ivanovich, Coach of Unisport of Haut Nkam

The likes of Jules Nyonga, Bonaventure Djonkep, among others, should have been given the countries top football position to manage. This will also give room for upcoming young coaches like Banarbas Njoku of Buea United FC who have proved to be good in grooming young talents to also be integrated at the National Level. Instead, foreign coaches occupy the top position while positions meant for young coaches are given to senior local coaches.

With a series of coaching courses and workshops held every year in the country, the question is; why organise such training workshops, train coaches only to turn around and despise them, or perhaps they are not qualified for the job they are trained to do!

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