The Cameroon Football Federation (Fecafoot) says it does not understand why the country has been banned from all football activity by Fifa.
On Thursday, Fifa suspended Cameroon “on account of government interference” in the Fecafoot elections in June but Fecafoot vice-president Essomba Eyenga believes there was no government interference but intervention and insisted they will appeal the ban in the Court of Arbitration for Sports.
“It is a big surprise, I don’t see any government intervention in what happened,” he told BBC Sport.
“We will make an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).”
Essomba believes what so ever was done by government was with good intentions and there is no way the detaining of Mohammad who was re-elected in the Fecafoot16 June polls for financial mismanagement of a state owned cotton company years back is against the Fifa regulations.
“Many actions have been taken, probably with good intentions by the government, but that is not allowed by Fifa regulations”
However, Fifa’s ruling relates to the results of the 19 June Fecafoot polls – which re-elected president Iya Mohammed that were cancelled by Fecafoot’s own appeals committee.
What followed once the result was cancelled, when Fecafoot vice-president and former transport minister John Begheni Ndeh forcibly installed himself as president on 28 June.
That also led to the resignation of Fecafoot’s first vice-president Seidou Mbombo Njoya , who had expected to step in as interim boss.
In a statement on Friday, Fifa told BBC Sport: “The interference is linked to the occupation of the Fecafoot headquarters by security forces who unilaterally decided to install one of the parties involved in the contested electoral process.
“As such, the authorities are clearly interfering with the internal affairs of Fecafoot in contravention of articles 13 and 17 of the Fifa Statutes, which oblige member associations to manage their affairs independently and with no influence of third parties.
“In addition, the occupation of the Fecafoot headquarters is yet another example of the long pattern of pressure applied by the authorities since the electoral process started in February 2013 and Fifa already sent in the recent months two correspondences related to interference.”
And while Eyenga insists the issue is “an internal affair” there is an ongoing power struggle within Fecafoot, as his view is not shared by the federation’s spokesman Junior Binyam.
“Fifa was involved in the meetings at the prime minister’s office so for Fifa to come this decision it must feel that some actions were authorized or accepted by the government,” Binyam told BBC Sport.
“Everything started on the 26 March when the minister of sports asked the federation to stop the elections.
Does this imply that Fifa creates a state with in a state?