They didn't want to play: Russia bought a friendly with the African team

The Russian Football Union (RFU) was forced to pay the Cameroon national team to get the African players to agree to play a friendly match with the Russian Federation. At the same time, serious problems arose with the payment, which is why the meeting on October 12, 2023 in Moscow was threatened with disruption two hours before the referee's starting whistle.,

This was stated in a commentary to Championship.com by the Secretary General of the Russian Federation Maxim Mitrofanov. According to him, the Russians managed to convince the participants of the 2022 World Cup that the money would be transferred to their account. As a result, the Cameroonians agreed to play the game and lost 0:1.

"It's very difficult to organize payments abroad nowadays. For money to reach Cameroon, it has to go through Europe. At some point, they were blocked in one of the European banks and did not reach in time. We made the transfer two weeks before the match, but on the day of the game, the money did not reach Cameroon. Of course, we received some dissatisfaction from our colleagues, but we managed to convince them that everything would be fine. After the guarantees, the question of a possible disruption of the match was removed. So problems can be expected everywhere," Mitrofanov said.

It should be noted that on March 21, the Russian national team will play a sparring match with a European team for the first time since the suspension of international competitions. The rivals of the Russian representatives will be the participant of the 2024 UEFA European Championship Serbia. The Russian Federation plans to turn the match into a political show.

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