Togo’s soccer players are in limbo, with no end in sight to a suspension of league competitions and fears growing about the impact of the 11-month suspension on the national side.
No ball has been kicked in the country’s top two domestic leagues for nearly a year, leaving the 2014-2015 season unfinished after deadlines for the resumption of fixtures were missed.
The situation is frustrating the likes of Blaise Kouma, who captains second-division side Etoile Filante, based in Togo’s capital, Lome.
“We’re lacking competition and going backwards. It’s bad for Togo. We’re a great footballing nation,” he said.
Tom Saintfiet, the Belgian coach of the national side Les Eperviers (“The Sparrowhawks”), agreed.
“It’s a real shame. No competitive football for months. I’m having to do the rounds of small grounds in Lome to watch matches when there’s talent elsewhere in the country,” he said. “It’s not easy in this situation to spot new players.”
The restart of the leagues was first due on March 15 and the last on Sept. 12 — but both dates came and went.
Most clubs decided to boycott the competitions in protest at the so-called “normalization committee” headed by former Togolese minister of sports Antoine Folly.
The committee was put in place by world governing body FIFA in December last year to replace Togo’s soccer federation (FTF), which was riven with internal dissent and bad management.
FTF officials, including its president Gabriel Ayemi, were all dismissed.
The committee’s aim is to revise the FTF statutes and organize new elections by Nov. 30 at the latest.
It is also charged with improving the day-to-day running of the game, operating like an electoral commission whose decisions are definitive and binding.
However, for most club officials, the committee is not fit to run the leagues.
According to sources close to the committee, a first-division club in Togo has to spend at least 60 million CFA francs (US$104,000) every season.
However, the Togolese government subsidizes every team a total of only 10 million CFA francs.
As such, the crisis shows no sign of ending, which is pushing players, coaches and supporters toward small local tournaments.
One tournament organized last month by sports television station TLS at the Agoe Stadium in Lome’s northern suburbs attracted several thousand supporters.
Four top-flight clubs took part.
“It’s pathetic to see these players in small stadiums because they’re lacking competition,” said Adekanmi Olufade, a former Togo international. “The members of the federation and the club officials should back down to bring an end to this crisis, which has gone on long enough.”
For Kouassi Talon, technical director at Agaza, the championship “is grounded because the normalization committee is asleep.”
“They were given nine months, they’ve done nothing,” he added.
Supporters and club managers, tired of traipsing around small stadiums, are also speaking out.
The crisis comes just as a number of players, including former captain Emmanuel Adebayor, have made themselves unavailable for selection.
Former Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Manchester City and Real Madrid striker Adebayor and others have criticized the “chaos.”
To top it all, a friendly match with Egypt in Cairo on Tuesday last week was canceled due to organizational difficulties, hampering Togo’s preparations for upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but