Former Cameroon captain, Samuel Eto’o, is facing fresh allegations over €567,570 reportedly paid by Russia for a friendly match against Cameroon in Moscow in October 2023.
According to The Times, contracts and invoices allegedly indicate that two payments of €455,056 and €112,514 were to be made into a personal account belonging to Eto’o, who is the president of the Cameroon Football Federation, FECAFOOT, at Qatar National Bank in Doha.
Former FECAFOOT officials have reportedly taken the matter to the FIFA Ethics Committee, claiming they found no records to show that the funds were subsequently transferred into an official federation account.
The allegations come amid separate scrutiny of Eto’o’s backing of FIFA president Gianni Infantino and the controversial FIFA Forward Enterprise project, which has featured in a recent FIFA court filing in the United States.
The former FECAFOOT officials have also questioned the Ethics Committee’s lack of communication and called for an investigation into the relationship between Eto’o and Infantino, as well as how the Russian payments were handled after they were made.
However, the claims remain allegations and do not establish any wrongdoing by Eto’o.
FIFA maintains that Infantino has “no influence” over its judicial bodies, which it says operate independently.
The Times reportedly contacted Eto’o and FECAFOOT for their responses, but neither had replied by the time the newspaper published its report.
