Comoros lodge CAS complaint against Cameroon

Wednesday Jan 30, 2019. 09:00

Comoros have lodged a complaint with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in hopes of getting Cameroon ejected from the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.

The Comoros Football Federation (FFC) argue that the Indomitable Lions should be excluded from the continental competition on the basis that they were stripped of their hosting rights last year.

A post on social media from the general manager of the Comoros team, Ben Amir Saadi, confirmed this course of action from the minnows, who are in the same qualifying group as Cameroon and face the West African heavyweights in their final match in March.

The FFC claims that the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has failed to implement its own regulations concerning the action to be taken.

CAF rules (Article 92.3) state that if a nation withdraws from hosting or has the rights taken away one year before the finals they will be hit with “a fine of five hundred thousand (500,000) U.S. dollars and a suspension of the next edition of AFCON of it's A national team, without considering the concerned edition”.

This seems to suggest that Cameroon should miss out on the 2021 edition, though CAF recently installed them as hosts of that tournament, bumping Ivory Coast and Guinea to host 2023 and 2025 respectively.

The March match between Cameroon and Comoros is set to decide which team joins Morocco (already qualified from Group B) in the 2019 finals. The Indomitable Lions need only avoid defeat to ensure they advance.