Boxing legend Muhammad Ali has been hospitalized for a respiratory issue, a family spokesperson has said. The 74-year-old is reportedly being treated and currently in fair condition.
Family spokesman Bob Gunnell confirmed Ali’s condition to the Associated Press. Ali suffers Parkinson’s disease. He was diagnosed in 1984 after quitting boxing. He was last seen out in public back in April when he attended the Celebrity Fight Night charity event in Arizona.
The battle for leadership will hit a higher gear this weekend as the championship enters the second and most decisive phase with matches counting for the 19th day of play scheduled to take place in stadiums across the country. Four teams, separated by barely three points are engaged in the contention for the league title this year namely, UMS, Unisport, Yong Sport and Union of Douala in order of appearance on the point tally sheet.
The point of interest will be to find out if UMS of Loum will continue maintaining her lead on the championship when they take on the Benjamin of the championship, Cosmos in the second encounter at the municipal stadium in Mfou on Sunday. The runners-up, Unisport will also be out to catch up with the leaders when they play host to visiting Astres of Douala at the municipal stadium in Bafang. Third-placed Yong Sport with 31 points as Unisport but outsmarted on goal difference, will also be out to maintain their good form when they take on Apejes in Mfou.
Union in the fourth position with 30 points and Coton sport in the fifth position with 29 points are equally not left out of the contention for leadership. Union will be slotting it out with Eding Sport at the Reunification stadium in Douala while the colossus from the North, Coton Sport will knock horns with Panthere in their stronghold in Garoua.
While the top quartet or quintet will be jostling for leadership, teams below the relegation line will be fighting for survival in the elite championship by hopping out of the danger zone. This is the case with teams like Dragon, Lion Blessé, Botafogo and Cosmos. While all hopes can be said to have been lost for Cosmos and Botafogo who have so far earned only 14 points and 16 points respectively in 18 outings and Botafogo, Dragon mathematically can still salvage their season but with the poor form shown by the team from Yaounde since the beginning of the championship, it is unlikely that Dragon can accomplish such a super human feat.
Dragon will embark on a perilous journey to Bafoussam to challenge local side Racing while Botafogo will also be travelling to Mbalmayo to slot it out with Canon. Teams in the middle of the table will be seeking to comfort their stay so as to be able to negotiate matches towards the end of the season when thing gets rough.
Cameroon Tribune
The World Football governing body,FIFA has appointed the Senegalese United Nations Official, Fatma Samoura as the new Secretary General. According to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, the first female FIFA Secretary General will bring a fresh wind to the council. Samoura will replace the fired Jerome Valcke if she passes an eligibility check.
Also on Friday, FIFA lifted Indonesia’s suspension from world soccer, Indonesian national and club teams, referees, and officials were banned over government interference in the running of the national federation. Indonesia was readmitted after the government agreed to end its suspension of the soccer federation, but the national team has missed out on qualifying for the 2018 World Cup and 2019 Asian Cup while banned. Benin and Kuwait are suspended due to government interference in their federations’ independence.
The Indomitable Lions of Cameroon have suffered a three goals to two defeat inflicted on them by the French National team. This was during an international friendly match at Stade de la Beaujoire in Nantes in France in the build to Cameroon’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) qualifier on June 3rd, against Mauritania.
The international friendly was also to prepare the French National team ahead of the 2016 UEFA European Championship starting June 10th. The 3 – 2 victory by France over Cameroon has given, manager Didier Deschamps’ side, hosts of the tournament, automatic qualification for UEFA 2016. Sports analysts, say France had a unique preparations for Euro 2016 compared to the other 23 nations participating in the competition. The French side is expected to play one more friendly against Scotland on Saturday, June 4, ahead of the start of Euro 2016.
During the Monday encounter, Blaise Matuidi gave the hosts the lead with a smart goal, but before the French public had time to celebrate, Cameroon’s Vincent Aboubakar equalized barely two minutes later. Olivier Giroud scored another goal for France just before half-time, the Indomitable Lions attempted to level score to no avail.
In the second half, Les Bleus dominated possession but created few chances, and Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting surprised the home side with a late equalizer at the 88th minute. Cameroonians had not savoured the score when, Dimitri Payet found the net for a last minute goal; giving France a win over Cameroon. Indomitable Lions goal keeper, Fabrice Ondoua has been highly appreciated for the magnificent and timely saves the spared the Cameroonian national team from conceding several goals.
The remains of the Cameroon international Patrick Ekeng has been laid to rest at their family compound in Ngousso,Yaounde. Patrick Ekeng died of a suspected heart attack after collapsing on the pitch playing for Dinamo Bucharest on 6th May 2016.
The Cameroon football family paid tribute to the player, led by the country’s Minister of Sports and Physical Education, Bidoung Kpwatt, who represented Cameroon’s president Paul Biya. Cameroon players past and present attended the service, and gave support to Ekeng’s wife and family.
His brother Jacques Ekeng said it is a great lost as “Patou” as he was fondly called was the breadwinner to the family. “He gave more love to his friends than to his family. That is Patrick, he was generous,” Jacques Ekeng said.
Patrick Ekeng’s club Dinamo Bucharest said they would honour the player’s memory by sending the Romanian Cup to his family in Cameroon if they win the trophy. Thirteen-time winners Dinamo face CFR Cluj in the postponed final on 17 May.
Cameroon’s Minister for Sports and Physical Education, Pierre Ismael Bidoung Mkpatt, has insinuated that the Chamber of Conciliation and Arbitration of the National Olympic and Sports Committee is incompetent to determine the validity of elections at the Cameroon Football Federation, FECAFOOT. The Minister’s stand on the overdue electoral bickering at FECAFOOT was made known yesterday in Yaounde and broadcast nation-wide following fears that the perennial contesting faction of the federation led by former Vice President, John Begheni Nde was bracing up to take over management of FECAFOOT affairs less than 72 hours after the Chamber of Conciliation and Arbitration of the National Olympic and Sports Committee had ruled that the recent elections that brought current President Tombi Aroko Sidiki to power was null and void. Can we therefore say the curtains have ultimately been drawn on the longstanding melodrama at FECAFOOT? We of Cameroon Concord News Group say NO! Needless taking you back to how we got to where we are now.
Rather, let us take the cue from when Tombi Aroko was sworn in as FECAFOOT boss. As celebrations went underway at the FECAFOOT headquarters in the Tsinga neighbourhood in Yaounde, the brain trust of the distraught faction was meticulously putting together files to challenge the decision to uphold the validity of the elections. One file bungled, while the other one convinced the Conciliation and Arbitration Committee of the National Olympic and Sports Committee to nullify the deliberations of the last FECAFOOT General Assembly, by implication, declaring the elections null and void.
FECAFOOT had 21 days to appeal the decision. But three days into the appeal opening, Minister Bidoung Mkpatt, the same one who had been sacked from Government in 2004 in the heat of the stand off between FIFA and FECAFOOT over the Indomitable Lions single outfit, undertook to hoodwink a carefully chosen group of officials to come up with what is currently tearing apart the football family in the country. Can someone explain to us why Abdourhaman Amadou and Co. who seem to be a particularly clever lot could not be cowed into submission by a conglomerate of learned men of the law? Without being a football astrologer, Cameroon Intelligence Report can safely conclude that Abdourhaman and Co. are already whistling foul and are certainly taking the matter to the Court of Arbitration of Sport in Lausanne who, before any other thing else, will raise an objection as to what we will be reminded of as being government intervention in football management in Cameroon.
For a man whom President Biya, against all odds, decided to offer some political rehabilitation, it is regrettable that Minister Bidoung Mkpatt should consciously create more problems for an octogenarian leader suffering from insomnia. Which way out? It is a matter of common sense that in such a long drawn out problem, a lot has been wasted and destroyed in material, financial, ego-tripping considerations. For one thing, the Government will not allow itself to be dragged endlessly in the mud with impunity.
The incumbent is certainly unwilling to let go the golden fleece after coming so close yet so far. And Sheik Abdourhaman Amadou who has demonstrated with outstanding finesse how well to read and interpret mere texts will for nothing at all slant from being The Cameroonian of the Year to a toddler. However, the complicated polynomial which otherwise should necessitate mastery of the Binomial theorem takes just knowledge of a simple linear equation to resolve: Summon Tombi and Abdourhamann to an eyeball-to-eyeball closed door discussion and ask them to grant a press conference after the secret meeting during which they will announce the joint decision and subsequently jointly supervise its implementation. This is our medical prescription to cure the cancerous ulcer lethally gnawing away at the FECAFOOT substrate.
