Victoria United Goalkeeper Allegedly Tortured By Management Over Match-fixing Claims

Victoria United goalkeeper, Eric Parfait Djomeni, was allegedly kidnapped and maltreated for several days by his club’s administration, which suspected of having sold several matches to opposing teams.

The news has been spreading on social media since yesterday evening.

Several whistleblowers have claimed that Eric Parfait Djomeni, 19, who is the goalkeeper of Victoria United Elite division club, was kidnapped by the president of his club, Valentin Nkwain.

According to the same sources, the president of Victoria United first took the young goalkeeper to court, an investigation opened for this purpose then revealed that the accusations against him were false.

This is how the administration of his club decided to kidnap him and torture him for several days, we learned.

A video accompanying this publication lets you hear the voice of a woman in distress being chased out of a home.

Goalkeeper’s Mother Aggrieved

According to the authors of the information, it is the mother of the young goalkeeper, demanding to see her son.

On the airwaves of Equinoxe Télévision, the said woman will also confirm the facts.

“Until now, I do not know why my son is being held here. He is being held like a prisoner, he is inside and he was spanked. I looked at his buttocks and I saw the traces of whips. I saw him and I do not know where they took him; I’m unhappy and if I leave here without my child, I do not know how to sleep […] He told me that he was beaten up and asked to accept that he sold matches. I cannot talk to my son, I do not know where he is. I am leaving Douala and I just want to see him,” she said.

Reached by telephone, Valentine Nkwain denied the claims, stating that it is impossible to bring his player home and subject him to torture.

However, he acknowledged having lost four matches and that an investigation has been opened to this effect.

He instead accused the young player’s mother of disorienting the investigation.

In a statement released Tuesday morning, the management of Victoria United outrightly rejected the accusations of torture of its goalkeeper.

“We categorically deny these allegations in their entirety. These accusations are not only false, but also designed to harm the reputation of our club and undermine the hard work of our players, coaches and staff,” the club’s statement reads.

Manipulation?

In a video filmed in the presence of the other players of the team, the young goalkeeper affirmed that he was not sequestered and that everything is going well with his club.

While Victoria United denies the claims, a complaint has been filed against its president Valentin Nkwain, with the Buea gendarmerie.

The powerful president of Opopo FC, who has close links with the Cameroon FA President Samuel Eto’o, is accused of arrest, sequestration and torture.

These offences are punishable under articles 74, 291 and 277-3 of the Cameroonian Penal Code.

“In the name and on behalf of Mr. Djomeni Eric Parfait, whose defense we are defending, we hereby bring the following facts to your attention. Indeed, our client is a football player who occupies the position of goalkeeper for the Victoria United club based in Limbe; As is common in all competitions, the aforementioned club has encountered two series of defeats in recent matches.

However, the president of the said club Mr. Valentin Nkwain, clearly a bad loser, believed he had to blame his goalkeeper, our client, for these defeats by accusing him of having orchestrated these defeats for purely lucrative purposes,” the complaint reads.

It furthers: “It was then that the latter embarked on a series of exactions against our client. In this regard, Mr. Valentin Nkwain attempted to mount an abusive legal procedure against him by taking him before the territorially competent Public Prosecutor.

“After the failure of this enterprise, he believed it necessary to sequester our client in an unidentified place, not without subjecting him to acts of torture of unheard-of violence,” the complaint further reads.