Rigobert Song has insisted that he has never had a problem with Andre Onana despite the goalkeeper’s retirement after the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar during which he was suspended for alleged indiscipline.
The head coach included the Manchester United goalkeeper in his list of players for the crucial AFCON qualifying encounter against Burundi on September 12.
“I think that if he is on the list, it’s because he did what he had to do,” Rigobert Song said during the press conference he held on Tuesday, August 29.
“There has never been a problem. I had said that all depended on him and he knew what he had to do,” he added.
Andre Onana’s reaction following the comments suggested that the declarations made during the press conference were unfounded.
“Lies produce flowers but not fruits” Onana shared on Instagram.
This is not the first time Onana is making reference to lies telling after Song’s outing.
During a press conference ahead of the Cameroon – Mexico friendly of June 11, the coach said “What you fail to understand is that I communicate regularly with Andre Onana on phone as a senior brother to a younger brother. We have no problem.”
Andre Onana immediately responded with a scornful post: “Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies” he wrote.
His posts on lies in the lions’ den began when he had to leave Qatar over the purported disagreement with Rigobert Song on game tactics.
“In a world where lying is the most common thing, telling the truth makes you a revolutionary. But in the end, time will put everything in its place” he said on December 8 after he left Qatar. His words implied that the national team staff had not been truthful.
In his remarks so far, the shot stopper has not openly mentioned any names but the timing and choice of words usually indicate whom they’re directed to.
Everyone awaits to see if Onana will join the Lions in Garoua on September 12, for the decisive encounter against the Swallows of Burundi.
Source: Cameroon News Agency