(Business in Cameroon) - As announced in March, the mobile telephony leader MTN Cameroon, signed on 11 May in Yaoundé, a partnership contract valued at FCfa 1 billion with the Cameroonian League of Football.

“The agreement we sign today incorporates the ambition of raising local football, that we would like to help strengthen, to the same level of performance as that of the Indomitable Lions”, declared Philisiwe Sbiya, Managing Director of MTN Cameroon.

Most of the funding, over a period of 3 years, is meant, according to her, to clubs in first and second divisions relabelled “MTN Elite One” and “MTN Elite Two”.

The sponsor offered to institute excellence bonuses to generate healthy competition between players and sustain the interest for the Cameroonian championship. At the end of the season, premiums will be given to the first five teams of MTN Elite One, as well as the first five teams of Elite Two. Bonuses will also be given to the best players and scorers of the two championships every month and at the end of the season.

Moreover, Philisiwe Sbiya indicated that the financing from MTN is also meant to professionalise the local championship.

Especially as “starting from this season, a special emphasis will be put on improving the management of clubs, and the inclusion of sports medicine, with, as starters, the installation of a defibrillator in every stadium where matches will take place”. As a reminder, MTN Cameroon, financed Cameroonian football in the past, from 2002 to 2012. But the mobile operator had to announce its withdrawal in January 2013, mentioning the poor organisation characterising football championships in the country.

S.A