March 25 – Cameroon have vehemently denied they were responsible for an email blunder which forced their captain, Bayern Munich’s Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, to miss out on selection for the national team against Cape Verde and Rwanda in Group F of African Nations Cup qualifiers.
German press reports say his federation (FECAFOOT) accidentally sent the call-up invite from Cameroon coach Antonio Conceicao to the wrong email address, as a result of which the Invincible Lions will finish their Group F campaign without their 32-year-old talisman.
But Cameroon head of communications Parfait Siki told ESPN there was no administrative mistake and that Choupo-Moting simply didn’t reply, implying he was not interested.
“The Cameroon Football Federation FECAFOOT made no mistake of the email address or contacts to the club and to the player,” Siki said. “We sent out invitations to all players including Choupo on the 5th of March 2021. We sent to clubs and players individually.
“For the particular case of Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting, we got no reply. We called him and he didn’t answer. Normally, we are supposed to have a reply within 10 days.
“We did a follow-up by calling him and sending his invitation via his WhatsApp contact, still no response.”
“In our context, this was a clear message the player was sending. The same situation occurred during our previous matches against Mozambique in Douala and in Maputo for which he didn’t show up.
“When he and his club stayed silent this time, we interpreted that to mean unavailability of the player to play for the country. This is why the coach took the decision to announce his squad list on the 16th of March for the upcoming matches without (his) name.”
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