Budget: Fears of Revival of Communal Football

Mukesh Ramrekha, former glory of Hindu Cadets, renamed Cadet Club is again a star overnight in the village of Souillac. "Alors football pou revinn kouma avan ? " That question, he heard repeatedly since the announcement of Xavier-Luc Duval Friday night. The finance minister said in his budget speech that "the government is taking bold decisions" and that "taking steps to revive traditional clubs (...) as long as their name has no implied communal. " 

The reflex is the same in the streets of Port-Louis, shows Elahee Anwar, son of the late Mamade Elahee (former player and coach of Muslim Scouts). "People ask me the same question. They wonder if football will become communal. Faute de mieux, they are nostalgic for a time and the atmosphere, " says Anwar Elahee as manager of ASPL 2000 club finished the season in second place in the local Premier League. 

Who says traditional club in Mauritius says, in effect, club communal character. Most traditional clubs - Muslim Scouts, Cadets Hindu, Tamil Cadets, Dodo and Racing Club - originally had a strong foothold communitarian. This model from the pre-independence period gave the king of sports unprecedented popular success for three decades, with heaving stages. 

"A match could attract 20,000 spectators," recalls Mukesh Ramrekha. But what was acceptable at a time has become problematic over time. The overhaul of football primarily intended to finish with this model, in 1982, caused a popular break, but breaking with the Community reference which was the goal sought by the thinkers of the reform. Regionalization imposed in 1999 for "décommunaliser" football once and for all, has caused a shift as a featured match of the first division not even draw 2,000 spectators today.

The former international striker and Rock-Wood Boy Scouts and the Fire Brigade, Tony Francis, bitterly extent that indifference which dropped football. Became coach of AS Riviere du Rempart, club in mid-table in the Premier League, he says that journalists do not even move more meetings to follow: "They call me after the game to get the result, that's all. " 

He who rose to fame with the Fire Brigade from 1990 to 1999 - five league titles - and played for the national team, assists with impotence in the descent into hell Mauritian football. "Players play in front of empty stands . So, motivation is no longer there, " said Tony Francis.

The morale of the players is in socks indeed. Also reflected in the conditions under which trains the best team in the rural north. It is on a dusty field of Belle-Vue, on the back of Anjalay stage that AS Riviere du Rempart prepares his matches four times a week. Or cloakroom or shower on site. What should be done to revive the king of sports Mauritius? 

But the most important question is: "What concerns us is how to appeal for the return of traditional clubs without waking their communal belonging" , asks Sameer Sobha, president of the Mauritius Football Association.