Ongoing, Gabon won the first game against the Comoros and drew against Ghana, but football is the least talked about in this team. The coach of Patrice Nueveu even hoped that after the successful start of the tournament, the off-court scandals would subside. But it was like trying to put out a fire with a water gun. A win with a semi-amateur team and a draw with average Ghana would distract attention from one of the loudest pedophile scandals in the world of football and a few side controversies – a grand event, after which the two biggest stars – and Mario Lemina – fell ill with COVID-19 and did not play in the first matches and the strike of players who refused to go to two training sessions because they demanded the federation to pay a bonus. The mess in Gabon begins in the offices and ends in the pitch.
The Garden of Eden
Patrick Assoumou Eyi is a leading Gabonese coach who led the U17 youth team until 2017, and is currently the technical director of the Gabonese Premier League. A French journalist in the British “The Guardian” described the accounts of players who were allegedly molested and raped by the former coach.
– He made me have sexual intercourse. It was a condition for staying in the frame. I left my village to help my family. I lived in the capital [Liberville – red.] and becoming a professional footballer was the only way for me to get out of poverty. So I did what I had to do to help my family – tells the British daily one of the footballers who played for Eyi in 2015-2017, who is also known in Gabon as “Capello”. For years, he has been using this pseudonym in tribute to the famous Italian trainer.
– Those were his methods. He often brought poor children from remote villages to the capital. He was brainwashing them into believing that they had to provide sexual services to him. One day I heard another coach say: “You know what you have to do to play for the U-17 team.” Most of our players had to have sex with him. I quit. I tried for my family but now i live out of the country. I can not come back – adds another aggrieved player.
– He sometimes took offerings to his home, which he called “the Garden of Eden.” He was very nice to me and every time he saw me he said I was beautiful. One day he left his office smiling and said some players were masturbating, another victim of the manager confides.
Eyi stopped working with the youth team in 2017, but in the following years he still had contact with young players, being the director of the Gabonese Premier League. His alleged victims claim that he has bullied boys for years and has passed them on to other federal activists. The footballers who were about to be abused did not report it to the police because they did not trust the justice system in their country. One former employee of Fegafoot, the Gabonese football federation, says he drew the board’s attention to Eyi’s behavior in 2019 and suspected him of sexual abuse of young players. As a result, he was about to be released. Fegafoot, in response to the Guardian’s questions, denies this.
Patrick Assoumou Eyi himself did not comment on the information of the British daily. He only posted a series of messages as status messages on WhatsApp. “Some use lies as a weapon,” he wrote.
recorded a complaint filed by the international footballers’ association FIFPro after the Guardian was published. “Our preliminary investigation brought consistent evidence from credible witnesses who spoke of the long-standing practice of coercing young footballers into sexual acts as a precondition for playing for the youth national team,” FIFPro said in a statement.
Fegafoot replied, “We have never recorded any complaints related to any act of this kind.” Federation spokesman Pablo Moussodji Ngoma added in a Facebook post that the British newspaper’s publications could be an attempt to tarnish Gabon’s image on the international stage.
It is not the end. The president of the Gabonese league has also been accused of sexually abusing young footballers
– If you want to play, you have to give me what I want. I can accelerate your career, even in the senior team – was to promise one of the talented footballers Serge Mombo, president of the highest league in Gabon, who has extensive contacts in the entire football environment. – Eyi and Mombo collaborated. Mombo flew with us to away games. I come from a poor family. It’s a great shame for me, but it was the only way to help my family. Therefore, I accepted the first offer. I was called up to the national team, but I felt terrible about it all. They both ruined me physically and emotionally. The next time I refused them, I stopped being appointed – says the aggrieved player.
Serge Mombo started working with youth teams from being a kitman, i.e. the person responsible for preparing the outfits for the match. The players were surprised that his influence was already so great then. They had to call him a coach, though he wasn’t. With time, he became the president of the Gabonese league. – It worked with Eyi. They offered us sexual offers in exchange for a place on the team. It worked in such a way that they sought us out and gave us money, gifts, and appointments to the representation. When we started dreaming about a professional game, they asked for sex. Mombo said if I want to keep playing, I have to give him something. I asked what was. He replied that my ass – reports another Gabonese footballer.
Another confirms: – Mombo came to my room at night and told me to go to the “Capello” bedroom. He said nothing more, he gave me no choice. “Capello” was waiting for me without a shirt.
Open secret. Romain Molina says there could be several hundred victims
Mombo, a former policeman, now president of Gabon’s top league and kitman of the senior national team at the African Nations Cup, denies ever having sexually abused young footballers. “They lie trying to slander me,” he wrote back to the Guardian, explaining the accusations of his former players.
He also made a Facebook post in which he wrote: “I wanted to laugh at it, but the accusations are too serious to leave without comment. I am innocent and the perpetrators of the conspiracy will be held responsible for their actions.”
FIFA has confirmed that an independent ethics committee has opened an investigation into the matter, and the Gabonese authorities have declared that they will take the matter seriously. Sports Minister Franck Nguema asked the prosecution to open an investigation, and President Ali Bongo Ondimba said he had ordered the investigation to be extended to all national sports federations. Patrick Assoumou Eyi – aka “Capello” – faces up to 30 years in prison.
Pierre-Alainem Mounguengui, president of the federation, was to know about what is happening in the youth national teams. According to former Gabon international Brice Makaya, who was Eyi’s under-17 assistant in 2014, he told Guardian that Mounguengui regularly flew to youth tournaments with the team and the accused coach. Moreover, Makaya says he spoke to the CEO of his suspicions about Eyi and Mombo while traveling to Ethiopia. “You have no evidence” – he was to hear.
Romain Molina himself, the author of the shocking article, accuses the entire federation of concealing the facts. – It was an open secret in Gabon – he believes. In his opinion, there may be several hundred victims.
Source: Sport
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
