Administración Integral de Riesgos

According to Nkwi & Vidacs (1997: 124), the first football clubs were set up in Douala and Yaoundé in the 1930s and 1940s. Both cities are located in the Francophone part of the country.

After Germany’s loss of Kamerun, the French ruled most of the territory now known as Cameroon, whereas the British had to settle for a small strip in the western part which, so it seemed, belonged more to (British) Nigeria than to (present-day) Cameroon. Football in British West Cameroon and French East Cameroun actually developed in a different manner. We will hear more about it in the next chapter. For now, it is important to realize that the ‘double’ coloniza- tion had an impact on the structure of the local football league.

The first football league consisted of two separate competitions. Clubs in so- called West Cameroon played in one competition, while clubs in East Cameroun played in another. The clubs from both sides of the country only played against each other in the tournament called the Cup of Cameroon. The two separate com- petitions were still going in the first few years after Cameroon’s independence in 1960 and the West and East only joined up in May 1972, twelve years after independence. Until then, Cameroon even had two separate national teams, for which only players from either the West or the East part of the country were selected.

The official national football league started in 1960, a year after FECAFOOT was set up and two years before the Cameroonian football association joined FIFA. The first-division league in Cameroon was called Division One (D1) or, in French, the Championnat de Première Division. In its first year, 11 clubs

participated in the D1 competition. Three clubs were based in Douala (Caiman, Vent Lolanne, and Oryx), three teams came from Yaoundé (Union, Diamant, and Dragon), one from Nkongsamba and the other four teams were also from the country’s Francophone region.

The city of Douala was completely and utterly dominant in the first decade of D1 competition. Ten football seasons passed and nine championships went to a club based in the country’s economic capital. Oryx de Douala truly was the number one football club at that time, winning six titles (1960, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966) and almost all of them in consecutive years. Three other champion- ships were won by Caiman de Douala (1962, 1968) and Union de Douala (1969). Diamant de Yaoundé, the representative from the political capital, won the D1 competition in 1966.

The year 1970 was a turning point when Canon de Yaoundé managed to win the national first-division league. The dominance of clubs from Douala slowly but surely faded in favour of the main club from Yaoundé. In the 1970s, Canon de Yaoundé took home the championship trophy four times (in 1970, 1974, 1977 and 1979). The other six titles went, of course, to clubs in Douala but, in addition to Canon’s march to the top, there was another difference between the two decades. Oryx de Douala, for instance, completely disappeared from the cham- pionship list and was ‘replaced’ by two other clubs from the harbour city: Léo- pards de Douala (1972, 1973) and Union de Douala (1976, 1978).

In the 1980s, the power in football completely shifted in favour of two clubs from the capital: Canon de Yaoundé and Tonnerre de Yaoundé. Canon won the national league four times (in 1980, 1982, 1985 and 1986), Tonnerre de Yaoundé even five times (1981, 1983, 1984, 1987 and 1988). None of the clubs in Douala was able to put up a meaningful fight against the two giants from the capital. The main difference between Douala and Yaoundé turned out to be that only two clubs dominated in Yaoundé, while Douala was full of big clubs struggling to win the championship.

The overall dominance of Douala and Yaoundé was so overwhelming in the first three decades of the D1 competition that only two clubs from other places managed to win the championship in this period, namely Aigle de Nkongsamba (1971) and Racing de Bafoussam (1989). The other 28 championship titles were evenly divided between clubs from Douala and Yaoundé (14 each).

It is not surprising though that clubs from these two cities were always win- ning the D1 competition. First of all, Douala and Yaoundé are inhabited by the dominant ethnic groups in the country, namely the Bassa and the Beti. Second, the Littoral Province (Douala) and the Centre Province (Yaoundé) were major urban areas at a time when the rest of the country still consisted of mostly rural

Table 1 List of champions of the D1 competition

Year Football club Province

2006 Coton Sport de Garoua North

2005 Coton Sport de Garoua North

2004 Coton Sport de Garoua North

2003 Coton Sport de Garoua North

2002 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

2001 Coton Sport de Garoua North

2000 Fovu de Baham West

1999 Sable de Batie West

1998 Coton Sport de Garoua North

1997 Coton Sport de Garoua North

1996 Unisport de Bafang West

1995 Racing de Bafoussam West

1994 Aigle de Nkongsamba Littoral

1993 Racing de Bafoussam West

1992 Racing de Bafoussam West

1991 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

1990 Union de Douala Littoral

1989 Racing de Bafoussam West

1988 Tonnerre de Yaoundé Centre

1987 Tonnerre de Yaoundé Centre

1986 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

1985 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

1984 Tonnerre de Yaoundé Centre

1983 Tonnerre de Yaoundé Centre

1982 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

1981 Tonnerre de Yaoundé Centre

1980 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

1979 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

1978 Union de Douala Littoral

1977 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

1976 Union de Douala Littoral

1975 Caiman de Douala Littoral

1974 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

1973 Léopards de Douala Littoral

1972 Léopards de Douala Littoral

1971 Aigle de Nkongsamba Littoral

1970 Canon de Yaoundé Centre

1969 Union de Douala Littoral

1968 Caiman de Douala Littoral

1967 Oryx de Douala Littoral

1966 Diamant Yaoundé Centre

1965 Oryx de Douala Littoral

1964 Oryx de Douala Littoral

1963 Oryx de Douala Littoral

1962 Caiman de Douala Littoral

1961 Oryx de Douala Littoral

1960 Oryx de Douala Littoral

areas. It is in these two regions that football was first developed and where the majority of football clubs can still be found today.

However, something changed in the 1990s. The year 1989 definitely was the focal point of a shift in power from Douala and Yaoundé to several other areas in the country, particularly the West Province. In 1989, as we know, Racing de Bafoussam won the national championship. It is one of the oldest clubs from the West Province, a region that is inhabited by the Bamileke people. Over the last two decades, the Bamileke have risen remarkably in economic and political power.

In the 1990s, five winners of the national league were clubs from the West Province, namely Racing de Bafoussam (1992, 1993 and 1995), Unisport de Bafang (1996) and Sable de Batie (1999). Aigle de Nkongsamba won the D1 competition in 1994. Union de Douala and Canon de Yaoundé may have won the title in 1990 and 1991 respectively but both regions have definitely lost their monopoly over football in the country.

Traditionally, Douala and Yaoundé are the cities that deliver between four to six teams each season, although in 1994 there were six teams from the West Province participating in the D1 competition. The numerical dominance of clubs from the Bamileke region in the national league continues to the present day.

Somewhere in the 1990s, yet another club and region made its appearance on the football scene. Coton Sport de Garoua, a club from the North Province, won the national championship in 1997 and 1998 and has since been an undisputed powerhouse in football. Sponsored by a successful agricultural company, the club’s dominance after 2000 is even more impressive than that of the clubs from Yaoundé in the 1980s. Coton Sport won the league in 2001 and also took home the title in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. Granted, Fovu de Baham (West Province) won the league in 2000 and Canon de Yaoundé came back strongly in 2002 to win the title, but it is only fair to say that Coton Sport de Garoua is the best club in Cameroon these days.