Rigobert Song’s two-year tenure as coach of the Indomitable Lions has come to an end as a press release from the Minister of Sports and Physical Education, Professor Narcisse Mouelle Kombi, confirmed his contract will not be renewed
Song joined the team as coach in 2022 and helped Cameroon qualify for the 2022 World Cup, where they beat Brazil and earned four points, a rare achievement for Cameroon in a long while.
Additionally, Song steered the team’s qualification to the 2023 African nations cup in Ivory Coast where Cameroon was booted out at the knockout stage by Nigeria.
His accomplishments did not go unnoticed, as he was among the 20 coaches nominated for the 2022 IFFHS Coach of the Year award by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics.
During his tenure, Cameroon played 23 games, winning six, drawing eight, and losing nine and climbed to 33rd position on the FIFA rankings after beating Brazil in the world cup, but they have since dropped to 51st place.
Song took over from An
tonio Conceicao, who led Cameroon to a bronze medal during the 2021 AFCON but was sacked by Fecafoot shortly after Samuel Eto’o became president in December 2021.
Before Song’s appointment, Cameroon had recorded 14 victories, six draws, and three defeats under the Portuguese coach Antonio Conceicao.
Before coaching the Indomitable Lions, Song was in charge of Cameroon’s U23 and intermediate lions, where he experienced one of the team’s worst performances during the 2018 African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Egypt.
Source: Cameroon News Agency
WINDHOEK: Minister of Finance and Public Enterprises, Iipumbu Shiimi, has allocated N.dollars 679.4 million to the Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service for the 2024/25 financial year.
This was revealed when Shiimi tabled the N.dollars 100 billion national budget in the National Assembly on Wednesday, under the theme ‘Continuing the Legacy of His Excellency, President Hage G Geingob by Caring for the Namibian Child.’
The Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service’s allocation will be divided among its three directorates; sport, youth and national service.
The N.dollars 679.4 million budget saw the sports ministry receive an additional N.dollars 206 million compared to the allocation in the 2023/24 financial year budget, where it received N.dollars 473.2 million.
Shiimi said a total of N.dollars 124 million is allocated for the renovation and upgrading of facilities such as the Independence Stadium in Windhoek over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), among other priorities.
‘N.dollars
124 million has been provided in the development budget for, among others, upgrading of the Independence Stadium, as well as various sports facilities and multipurpose youth centres across the country,’ he said.
In the 2022/23 budget, the sports ministry received an allocation of N.dollars 50 million, while in the 2023/24 budget, an allocation of N.dollars 142 million for the renovation of facilities such as Independence Stadium was made. This year’s allocation once again comes as a tonic for the country’s worn-out sports sector, which continues to struggle with inadequate and dilapidated facilities.
The finance minister stated that the Vote of Sports, Youth and National Service has increased by 45.3 per cent to N.dollars 679.4 million in the Financial Year 2024/25 and a total of N.dollars 2.2 billion over the MTEF.
‘We take note of the re-energised interest in sports activities and have accordingly increased the operational budget for sport promotion programmes by an additional N.dollars 100 million,’ he
said, adding that the budget increase includes N.dollars 29.5 million for preparatory activities to enable Namibia to host the Region 5 Youth Games in May 2025.
Source: The Namibia Press Agency