What can a national football federation do to improve the fortunes of their football team? Perhaps invest in training centres, educate coaches to nurture young players and prepare them for international football? Maybe you might decide to develop clubs and thus gradually improve the quality of players who reach the national team setup. Sure, you could do many of those things. Or you could just change the team’s nickname.Beninese Football Federation (FBF), or its highly innovative president Mathurin de Chacus, decided to change the national team’s name from The Squirrels to The Cheetahs in an attempt to improve the team’s fortunes.##NAJAVA_MECA_6588385##President De Chacus formalized the process of changing the name from Les Ecureuils to Les Guépards. He sent the letter to the Ministry of Sport to ask him for permission to make the change official – whatever that means. It should be noted that the final decision rests with the government and not with FBF. Will FIFA mind? Does that count as the state’s interference with the national football association? It’s a mess.The proposal was made during the elective General Assembly of the FBF, and of course, it surprised more than one. But the notion is nothing new for the Beninese. Some might say it’s a seasonal debate, one that often arises when the Squirrels of Benin underperform in international competitions – which happens pretty regularly. On the rare occasions where the team does well, hardly anyone speaks badly about the Squirrels.©Getty ImagesYou don’t have to be a genius to realize that the Beninese Football Federation must work at the base so that the efforts can produce the expected results, concentrating the efforts on creating training centres worthy of the name and not what they’ve got now. Also, the Federation must have proper and professional technical management. Their federation had its share of controversy and legal problems, which is something that we in Kenya aren’t unfamiliar with. But at least nobody had the idea to change the iconic name of The Harambee Stars.Benin Republic 🇧🇯 Football Federation adopts Cheetah to drop Squirrel as its totem.The national team of Benin will no longer be nicknamed Squirrels.Les Ecureuils, translates into English as The Squirrels, was coined in the 1960’s. pic.twitter.com/yPePPTaZns— Africa View Facts (@AfricaViewFacts) August 22, 2022 Animals figure prominently among the chosen names of national teams on the continent, such as the Leopards of the Democratic Republic of Congo, crocodiles (Likuena) of Lesotho, Lions of Senegal and wasps (Amavubi) from Rwanda. Let’s see if The Cheetahs will win more often than The Squirrels.
