Cameroon:Union Douala prepares for “reconciliation” congress

Published on
11.02.2022 at 18h41
by
Francis Ajumane

Legendary Cameroonian club, Union Sportive of Douala is bracing up for its congress which holds this weekend in the economic capital.

The congress which seeks to rally supporters and fans of the club in order to discuss the way forward ahead of the new football season will hold on Sunday, February 13 at the New Bell neighbourhood where the club was created.

The congress comes in the wake of a poor performance last season that saw the club finish as one of the bottom sides in the championship.

To that effect, the President, Polycarpe Kenmogne has already outlined his ambitions for the new season as he looks to stabilise the team in the Elite I before looking forward for silverware.

In the interview below, the Union President talks about the club’s ambitions and expectations for the new season:

Ahead of the start of the new football season, where is Union Sportive of Douala at the moment?

USD is there and preparing for the new season. We have done all what we are supposed to do, we did a very good recruitment, we are preparing our teams, we have played some matches and the results that we got are quite good. We deeply hope a very good season this year.

How was the recruitment done? Was it at the national level or you went international?

The recruitment were done on national basis and we targeted some players, those who have been playing the Elite I competitions and we are quite confident in their performances.

Union of Douala is always on the offensive when it comes to the recruitment of players but we don’t really see the results on the field.  What are the measures u have taken this year to ensure the recruitment goes right?

This year the recruitment was made with targeted players that we intended to recruit. We have a whole committee in charge of recruitment and we are quite confident that this time around we will spring a surprise with the quality of our players. 

There is a congress that has been announced for Sunday, a congress christened a rallying congress…

I want to also add that it is a reconciliation congress. We want to rally all our supporters for this congress. The venue is New Bell and you know Union Sportive of Douala originated from New Bell, so it is a come back to their roots, to rally and analyse what we did in the past. We want to examine what went wrong and we believe during this congress we should be able to take appropriate measures to make sure what happened a few years ago should not happen.

And to also raise funds….

Yes, we need to raise funds, that is one of the main points on the agenda. We need to raise funds to be able to attain the achievements.

Union will be taking part in the championship with a new executive at the helm of FECAFOOT, what are your expectations?

I want to first of all thank the new executive for all what they have been doing since they were elected, by providing funds to teams…we appreciate that. We expect that they will keep on supporting the teams throughout the football season.

President Polycarpe Kenmogne says he has big ambitions for Union of Douala

We know you have been Vice President of Union of Douala but you have now stepped up as President. It comes with a lot of demands and exigencies …

I have been in the environment of the team for the past 10-12 years so I know the environment of Union Sportive of Douala and Union, we have to manage the players,  we have to manage the technical team, the supporters. It is even more difficult to manage the supporters than the players themselves. So I think we should be able to catch up with all the exigencies.

What about the technical bench of Union Sportive of Douala?

Now we have Oumarou Sokbha who is the main coach and he has been doing a good job so far, so we are have confidence in him. The results of a few matches we have played so far are very good and we hope with him we will be able to realize our dreams.

What are your expectations from the technical bench?

Our expectation is to maintain the team in Elite I and to prepare the team to be champions next year, but not this year.