Limbe was this year’s venue for Cameroon Sports Journalists Association to mark the international day of press freedom.
As a yearly outing to mark the World Press Freedom Day, the Association of Cameroon Sports Journalists (French acronym, AJSC) converged on Limbe, headquarters of Fako Division, South West Region, for their 12th edition of inter-media football competition last Saturday, 3 May.
This year, seven media houses were involved in the contest with the Littoral branch of the AJSC lifting the trophy. They beat current cup holder, AS SOPECAM, 3-1, after penalty shootouts. At full time AJSC-Littoral and AS SOPECAM were on a zero-all-tie. Each team played three matches and the finalists did a fourth in the tournament of one day.
Although the matches were shortened to 25 minutes per half time, fatigue was telling on the players faces especially those who climbed to the final. While Sone Dipoko of the South West Journalists team carried the best scorer’s prize, Le Jour team won the fair-play cup, and medals are awarded to the players of both finalist-teams.
Medals for finalist-players were not readily on hand this year due to sponsoring hitches. As explained by the national President of the Cameroon Sports Journalists’ Association, Emmanuel Gustave Samnick, CAMTEL dealt them a deadly blow by informing them, two days to the competition, that they hadn’t the CFA 1.5 Million earlier promised to sponsor the competition.
Samnick, however, praised the friendship that the competition has built among men and women of the pen, microphone, and the screen. He said next year’s venue of the competition shall be determined at their evaluation meeting in the Association’s headquarters, Yaounde, this weekend. Before exiting from Limbe, AS SOPECAM’s coordinator, Messi Ndongo Michel, and team captain, Omang Lambert showered praises to SOPECAM’s management for sponsoring sports that are a unifying factor in the State’s Corporation.
