Two Spanish coaches have been waiting for five years for the Equatorial Guinea Football Federation (FEGUIFUT) to pay them for the services provided. Is about Esteban Becker and Miguel Angel Pozanco, who were working for the Equatorial Guinea men’s and women’s teams when they were unfairly dismissed in June 2017. In August 2017, they denounced the Equatorial Guinean federation to FIFA for non-payment and after proving them right in all instances, they continue without receiving payment. The plaintiffs believe that FIFA is giving a favorable treatment to the African federation.
Becker and Pozanco have urged the FEGUIFUT to pay them insistently and through legal channels and have agreed with all their claims. The last resolution in his favor was last week. The headline was ‘FIFA expels Equatorial Guinea from the 2026 World Cup for debts to Spanish coaches’. But the small print said that Said ruling will become null and void if FEGUIFUT pays the debt, of more than two million euros, before the draw for the qualifiers, in July 2023. Otherwise, Equatorial Guinea will be left without playing the 2026 World Cup. That had already happened with the 2022 World Cup and FEGUIFUT did not stay out of the qualifying phase nor did they pay them.
After their first complaint in 2017, two years later, in January 2019, the FIFA Player Status Committee agreed with them and FEGUIFUT appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). In November 2020, the TAS again agreed with the two Spanish coaches, but the Equatorial Guinea federation continued without paying its debt. For this reason, in December 2020 Becker and Pozanco reported their case to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee, which is the body in charge of guaranteeing the execution of FIFA decisions and the CAS awards, and must impose the necessary sanctions to fulfill its mission.
Miguel Ángel Pozanco, during his time at FEGUIFUT, in a training session with the lower teams of Equatorial Guinea
The FIFA Disciplinary Committee agreed with them. Esteban Becker has to be paid 19 monthly payments, plus interest, plus procedural expenses, and Miguel Ángel Pozanco, 23 monthly payments, plus interest, plus procedural expenses. In March and May 2021, the Disciplinary Commission urged FEGUIFUT to pay the debt and if it did not, it indicated that it could leave it out of the World Cup in Qatar. José Páez, from Nebot & Páez Abogados, lawyer for Becker and Pozanco, insisted every month of 2021 to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee so that the Equatorial Guinean federation complies and pays its debt, warning that time was essential for a possible expulsion from the qualifying phase of the World Cup in Qatar had the intended deterrent effect.
However, this FIFA body adopted a new -the third- sanctioning decision, agreeing to the expulsion of the qualifying phase for the Qatar World Cup and setting a deadline for payment that expired the day after the end of the qualifying group stage of the African Football Conference for the World Cup in Qatar, which FEGUIFUT was playing at that time and since the Equatorial Guinea team was eliminated by not passing the group stage, FEGUIFUT continued without paying. The choice of the term for compliance with the FEGUIFUT decision was not fortuitous because, according to the technicians’ lawyers, in the letters addressed to FIFA, this point was insisted ad nauseam for months before the October decision, since it was suspected some kind of favor.