Football: iconic cameroonian trainer, Jean Paul Akono, bedridden by illness

The 2000 Olympic gold medal-winning head coach is being catered for at the Yaounde General Hospital by the Ministry of Public Health.

Celebrated Cameroonian football trainer, Jean Paul Akono is seriously ill and undergoing treatment at the Yaounde General Hospital. According to sources, the celebrated tactician was taken to the hospital last Tuesday April 8 after his health condition continued deteriorating.  Per information gathered by The National Post, the 73-year-old is undergoing treatment at the adult emergency room of the Yaounde General Hospital. 

The trainer is catered for by a multidiscipline medical team led by the head of the surgeries and specialist department of the Yaounde General Hospital, Prof Daniel Handy Eone under the supervision of the Director General of the Yaounde General Hospital, Prof Noel Emmanuel Essomba. The exact medical complication that Jean Paul Akono is going through remains unclear. But it has been reported that he notably has issues on his leg which has made him weak and unable to walk.

In a video shared on social media networks early this week, the former Canon of Yaounde and Indomitable Lions midfielder was seen relying on support to walk. It is reported that the medical bill of the former trainer is being taken care of by the government of Cameroon through the Ministry of Public Health. Sources say the government intervened to assist the former Chad national team trainer after his family openly requested support from persons of goodwill.

Jean Paul Akono

Jean Paul Akono is one of the most recognizable coaches that Cameroon has ever produced. Akono led Cameroon to winning a gold medal in the men’s football tournament of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney in Australia. The Sydney triumph made Cameroon only the second African country to win a gold medal in the men’s football event of the Summer Games. The victory followed that recorded by Nigeria during the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta in the United States. Apart from his journey in the 2000 Games, Akono who played professional football as a midfielder has had a generally rich playing and coaching career both within and outside Cameroon. Akono played for Canon of Yaounde between 1979 and 1980.

He has served as caretaker coach of the senior men’s national football team of Cameroon on several occasions. The most recent of the stints was in 2013 when he took charge of the team during a section of the qualifiers to the 2014 FIFA World Cup before he was replaced on a permanent basis by German trainer, Volke Finke. Akono served as head coach of Chad’s senior men’s national football team between 2002 and 2003.