World Cup 2014: Cameroon squad fly to Brazil 12 hours late after resolving dispute over player bonuses
Players settle for about £7,200 more each, while the federation had to take out a loan
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Your support makes all the difference.Cameroon players have resolved their dispute over bonuses and have flown to the World Cup 12 hours later than expected.
The Cameroon football federation said the strike that had kept the players from boarding the plane on Sunday had been resolved.
Each member of Volker Finke’s squad will now receive about £7,200 more than they had been offered in the first place to take part in the tournament. They had been offered 50m CFA francs, but that has been raised by 5.8m.
Cameroon players have gone on strike before for the same reason.
“Everything is OK now. We will embark tonight,’ Fecafoot spokesman Laurence Fotso said last night.
Fotso added: “That money is given [by Fifa] three months after the end of the competition.”
So the federation “borrowed money as a private loan to satisfy the players”.
Finke told German TV channel Sport1: “There has been an agreement now and there is no need to make a big sensation out of it or make huge stories out of it.”
Samuel Eto’o and the rest of the squad were meant to depart at 8am GMT on Sunday morning, but eventually left at 8.30pm.
Reuters
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