The Indomitable Lions of Cameroon were on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 at the Commanderie, the training camp of Olympique Marseille held to a draw by the French Ligue 1 club. Cameroon Info.net reported that the match fell short of national and international standard. Lassana Diarra was the man of the match who signed his return after two months of absence.

The Cameroonians have moved to a camp in Mallemort, a town about sixty kilometers from Marseille and the Indomitable Lions are expected to leave for Algeria on Friday, October 7, 2016 to clash with the Desert Warriors on Sunday, October 9- the first match of the final round of qualifying for the world Cup Russia 2018.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from CIN

The former captain of the Indomitable Lions will be evacuated in the coming hours to a hospital in France. Rigo, as he is often referred to was a victim of a cerebral vascular accident last Saturday at his home and was admitted at the Yaounde Emergency Centre.

We now understand from government media sources that a multidisciplinary team and emergency resuscitators headed by Dr. Louis Georges Bitan, the Director of the Yaounde Emergency Centre, were mobilized around the patient.

Rigobert Song was transferred to the intensive care unit and resuscitation was successful. State owned radio and television recently announced that artificial respiration has been disconnected and our Rigo breathed again spontaneously.

Song suffered from a cerebral subarachnoid haemorrhage by aneurysm rupture, a form of stroke that often kills 50% of patients and 20% come away with significant neurological damage. Rigobert Song will be evacuated in the coming hours.

By Sama Ernest with files from CIN

Indomitable Lionesses were beaten 3-2 yesterday by the Canucks of Canada. The Canadians opened the score sheet through Huitema in the 3rd minute. Cameroon equalized in the 17th minute with a free kick from Djoubi.

The Lionesses followed with a second goal at the 42^nd minute of the encounter through Dabda. The Canadians were awarded a penalty in the 75th minute rightly taken by Stratigakis.

Taylor scored the winning goal in the 83rd minute. Final score, 3-2 in favour of Canada.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Russia has unveiled three candidates to become the official mascot for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. An image of a tiger, a wolf, and a cat, were projected onto the Moscow State University. The presentation was part of the annual Circle of Light International Festival.

An online vote was launched, so Russian football fans could decide on their favorite character. The winning character will be announced live on television on October 21st. The 2018 World Cup will be held from June 14th to July 15th at 12 stadiums in different Russian cities.

Presstv

FIFA through the Confederation of African Football (CAF) has unveiled the identity of the arbitrator for the highly anticipated duel between two African football giants, Cameroon and Algeria.

The first leg that will be staged in Algiers will be handled by the South African, Daniel Bennett. The 40 year old, Daniel Bennett is an international referee since 2002.

By Rita Akana

The Paralympic Games will begin this Wednesday in the city of Rio and the competition will see only one Cameroonian taking part. Unlike the Olympics when Cameroon was represented by 24 athletes in four disciplines, the Paralympic Games scheduled to end on the 18^th of September will have Christian Gobe based in Switzerland since 2000 fighting for Cameroon.

Broken by polio and confined to a wheelchair since the age of 4 years, Christian was a gold medalist at the All Africa Games (shot put).  He was also a silver medalist at the Grand Athletics CPI in Dubai in 2014. He has never been supported by the CPDM regime in Cameroon on lame and ridiculous reason that there are no financial means for disabled athletes.

Interestingly, a man whose name we got as Jean Jacques Ndoudoumou, the so-called President of the Cameroon National Paralympic Committee, left Cameroon on Monday at the head of a delegation of six members to encourage our Christian Gobe.

By Rita Akana

Swiss federal prosecutors say they have opened criminal proceedings against Germany football great Franz Beckenbauer as a part of corruption probe.

Attorney General of Switzerland announced that Beckenbauer with three other members of the 2006 World Cup organizing committee, Horst Rudolf Schmidt, Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach are under investigation over allegations of corruption in the awarding of the 2006 World Cup to Germany.

The 70-year-old and former Bayern Munich captain has denied wrongdoing.

Presstv

Clinton Njie is now a Marseille player. The Cameroon international, 23, has left Spurs and has reportedly signed a one year loan deal.

The agreement also states that Olympique de Marseille has an option to grant the athlete a permanent deal valued at € 7 million. The Cameroonian striker has already passed a medical. He will join OM this Wednesday.

By Chi Prudence Asong

Achill Rovers footballer, Joseph N’Do’s generosity and selflessness shone through over the weekend when he donated his 2006 Eircom League winning medal to Gearóid’s Smile, for it to be auctioned to raise money for children’s cancer. The former Cameroon International footballer was one of over 400 people who took part in the Three Peak Challenge in aid of Gearóid’s Smile on Achill Island over the weekend.

Gearóid’s Smile is a children’s cancer charity which is in memory of six-year-old Gearóid Murphy from Achill who died from cancer in 2014.N’Do who made 21 appearances for Cameroon and played in the 1998 World Cup in France stunned Gearóid’s family when he presented the Eircom League medal he won in 2006 while playing for Dublin club Shelbourne. The medal will be auctioned at a later date to raise money for Gearóid’s Smile.

Generosity

Gearóid’s mother, Mary told The Mayo News that this gesture by N’Do was an example of the generosity and support which people have shown towards them.“You don’t expect things like this…you don’t expect someone to hand over their medal which they worked hard to win. It just shows you of the absolute generosity of the people and the outstanding community spirit in Achill which is second to none. People who were not able to climb made themselves available to volunteer to do something else. Everyone rallied behind the event, just the same as last year,” she said.

Gearóid would have made his First Holy Communion this year and his class in Dooagh NS presented a cheque of €100 towards the charity, which was raised from donations they received for their Communion.A huge number of people took part in the Three Peak Challenge in Saturday which involved climbing the three highest mountains on Achill Island.

The climb started at 6am with 138 people starting the first climb of Croaghan, 200 took part in the climb and walk at Slievemore while 105 completed the challenge with the climb of Minaun.Mary said they were thrilled with the turnout and thanked all the people who travelled to take part and made it an enjoyable event.

Argentina and Barcelona footballer Lionel Messi has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for tax fraud. His father, Jorge Messi, was also given a jail term for defrauding Spain of €4.1m (£3.5m; $4.5m) between 2007 and 2009.

They also face millions of euros in fines for using tax havens in Belize and Uruguay to conceal earnings from image rights. However, neither man is expected to serve time in jail. Under the Spanish system, prison terms of under two years can be served under probation.

BBC