€567,570, one friendly, and a bank account in Doha
A single figure sits at the centre of this. €567,570, the money Russia paid around the friendly played against Cameroon in Moscow in October 2023.
The Times published an investigation this afternoon into where that money went. Samuel Eto’o, president of the Cameroon federation, is the subject.
The British paper says it has seen contracts and invoices. Those documents point to two payments, one of €455,056 and a second of €112,514. According to the report, both were destined for a personal account held by Eto’o at Qatar National Bank in Doha.
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Former FECAFOOT officials have gone to the ethics committee
The complaint filed with FIFA’s ethics committee comes from ex-officials at the Cameroon federation, and it is narrow in scope. They say no accounting or banking record has been produced showing the funds later reached FECAFOOT’s official account.
The same group is asking why the ethics committee has said nothing since the filing landed. They draw attention to how close Eto’o is to Gianni Infantino.
Worth being plain here: these are allegations and questions from those former officials. Nothing has been ruled on, and nothing has been proven.
The politics behind the timing
Eto’o’s backing for Infantino and the FIFA Forward Enterprise project came up in a recent FIFA court filing in the United States. That project involved selling stakes in the World Cup to private investors, and several European federations pushed back hard against it.
FIFA rejects any suggestion of interference. Its position is that Infantino holds no sway over the judicial bodies, which it describes as independent.
The Times approached both Eto’o and FECAFOOT. Neither had replied when the piece went out.
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