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Yaoundé — Striking Cameroon players will be offered an additional performance-related bonus at the Africa Cup of Nations, Sports Minister Narcisse Mouelle Kombi said yesterday.

The players on Thursday refused to board a plane bound for the continent’s showpiece biennial tournament in Egypt. 

After that refusal, Kombi presided over an overnight meeting with some senior players and their representatives after which the Cameroonian Football Federation (Fecafoot) agreed an additional bonus of €7 600 per player.

Each player had already received a payment of €30 489 from the government.

“We hope that the players who asked to be heard will accept to set off in the day,” a source close to the sports ministry told AFP.

Cameroon kick off their campaign against Guinea-Bissau on Tuesday, with Ghana and Benin making up Group F.

Meawhile, the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations kicked off yesterday in Egypt and this is how the competition works:

First round

– The 24 qualifiers have been seeded according to the world rankings and divided into six groups of four

– Each team plays the other three in its group once with three points awarded for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss

– The winners and runners-up in each group and the best four third-place teams – a total of 16 – qualify for the second round

– If teams finish level on points, the following tiebreakers will apply to decide placings:

  1. Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams

  2. Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams

  3. Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams

If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all the head-to-head criteria, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams

   1. Goal difference in all group matches

   2. Goals scored in all group matches

   3. Drawing lots

Knockout rounds

– This phase consists of eight second round matches, quarter-finals, semi-finals, a third-place play-off and the final 

– Teams drawing after 90 minutes play 30 minutes extra-time and if they are still level, a penalty shootout will decide the winners

– The VAR (video assistant referee) system will be used from the quarter-finals onwards. — Sport24.