Volker Finke has emphatically denied any suggestion that his Cameroon players might have been engaged in match-fixing during the 4-0 defeat against Croatia in their second group game.
The subject was raised after Ralf Mutschke, Fifa’s head of security, was reported to have said that Cameroon’s result in Manaus last Wednesday had been discussed by officials, who look closely at all the World Cup games to guard against possible match-fixing. Mutschke has given no indication that Fifa is planning to take any action against Cameroon.
It was a bad night all round for Cameroon against Croatia. As well as slipping to a second successive defeat that confirmed their elimination from the World Cup, Alex Song, the former Arsenal midfielder, was sent off for striking Mario Mandzukic in the back in an off-the-ball incident. Later in the game two of the Cameroon players, Benoît Assou-Ekotto and Benjamin Moukandjo, clashed and had to be separated by team-mates.
Mutschke, a former Interpol executive and police offer, admitted on the eve of the World Cup that certain teams and groups had been identified as being vulnerable to fixers. He has suggested that the last round of group matches, involving teams with nothing to play for – which is the case with Cameroon who take on Brazil in Brasília tonight – carried a greater risk.
Finke, however, robustly defended his players against any allegations of wrongdoing. “It must be a rumour, because I have never heard anything about that, it’s not something that reached me,” he said. “I don’t read the paper. I have honestly never heard anything about this topic. I know my team and it is out of the question. I find it completely impossible that my players would give away the match. Don’t worry about that at all. Don’t worry.”
When it was pointed out to Finke that the question was aired because of comments made by Mutschke, the Cameroon coach said: “I think that’s nothing to do with the field of play. I don’t have anything to say about that. I’m concerned with what is going on on the pitch. That’s all I want to say.”
On the pitch, however, things have not been much better for Finke and Cameroon and the incident involving Assou-Ekotto and Moukandjo continues to cast a shadow over the squad. Finke said that he had spoken to Assou-Ekotto and Moukandjo but he insisted that the conversation would remain private.
“I think everybody saw the behaviour of the players, that’s completely unacceptable, so it is clear that we have to avoid this kind of thing from re-occurring on the pitch in the future,” Finke said. “They have to be an example to the youth. So I don’t condone this behaviour. The federation will decide the disciplinary action. The players know what happened, things have been cleared up between them, we talked about it and there will be consequences.”
Finke’s position has also come under the microscope after a disastrous World Cup but he refused to say sorry for the team’s performance and instead suggested that underachieving players were to blame. “I have no apologies to make, not at all, I am convinced of my choices,” he said. “I’m not a youngster, I know how things work in football. It’s true I was disappointed that there were one, two, three players who didn’t play up to the level expected of them. We will analyse things but now is not the time, We have to focus on the game against Brazil.”
Samuel Eto’o, who missed the Croatia game because of a knee injury, has no chance of starting against Brazil but Finke did suggest that the former Barcelona striker could be introduced from the bench, in what may prove to be his final World Cup appearance.
Although Cameroon’s fate has already been sealed, Finke said that his players were determined to make life difficult for Brazil and restore some pride. “Nobody wants to leave Brazil with another defeat, we don’t want to leave on a bad impression, we hope to preserve the reputation of the country and the team,” he said. “I’ve seen in training for the past two days it was difficult to get the guys to do some work but yesterday we had a good training session. The guys are willing to show another side of Cameroon and end on a good note.”