Bulletin d´Île de Romanhe 32

◀ (October 2014) Ilya Roman football team eliminated in pre-round of African football championship. ▶

(Port de Boiguehenneuc) Île de Romanhe will not participate in the African football championship, which is to be held in Morocco next year. The football team of our country lost in the away game against Kenya with 2-0 and the match played one month later (also against Kenya) ended in a draw. Because of this our team was eliminated already in the pre-round of the championship. And although Kenya later on was eliminated as well, due to a loss against Lesotho (and so the shame and dissapointment of the loss of Île de Romanhe decreased a little bit), there was a feeling of defeat in the country when the news of the loss was announced. The arrival of the Ilya Roman players on the national airport became a large explosion of anger amongst the fans, who had gathered there to "welcome" the team. The police had great difficulties in keeping the fans under control and at the end they were forced to guide the players to another exit and to the waiting buses in order to escape the fans.

Almost all the media spoke about the failure against Kenya, but one could also hear sounds suggesting that the loss may not have been the complete fault of the players. La Dépèche d´Île de Romanhe wrote that it may be time for a change in the management of the football association of our country. "The Ilya Roman football asociation has during the leadership of Thimard Mâchefer (the managing director of the association) developed into a state within the state, with lots of money involved, and is strikingly often associated with accusations of corruption within the management. One wonders if this is a solid base for a solid football culture. Maybe the bad performance of our players is the result of a bad moral within the management. Why make a good performance if most of the money seems to dissapear in the pockets of the management?"

But Thimard Mâchefer immediately rejected this kind of accusations and threatened in a press release to institute a lawsuit for defamation against the newspaper if it would continue to publish this kind of, according to him, unfounded allegations. Instead, he laid the blame for the poor performances on the current coach, the Marckonian Peter Larson, and said that the board will discuss whether Larson will be allowed to continue as coach or not.