Marked for Idriss Mbaiguedem
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Elect Sport for Ezechiel Abba was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $51.8K — a club that wants Abdramane Mahamat enough to be asked twice.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Issa Moustapha falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Mahamat Abba and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The formation has left Bicto Tyonga behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. AS Etat Major will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Oumar Haroun
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market17 Aug 2026
Ali Adoum linked with a move away
The name of Ali Adoum keeps appearing in other people's back pages. AS Etat Major say nothing, which says plenty.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ahmat Abba has company in his position
The competition arrived without a word said to him about it. Ahmat Abba keeps the shirt for now, at AS Etat Major's convenience rather than his own.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The offer went to US Moursal this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Gazelle
Abbas Maigué and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Gazelle baulk at the price for a squad player
Stars Jeunes Talents wanted more than $37.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
A loan move for Ahmat Abba is in the works
Gazelle have made the call to US Moursal. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Gazelle are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Gazelle will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Market17 Aug 2026
A season-long look at somebody else’s player: Idriss Mbaiguedem arrives from AS Etat Major with something to prove and a return ticket in the drawer. Good loans make everybody richer; this one starts Saturday.
Market17 Aug 2026
A season-long audition: US Moursal still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Gazelle's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The deal with AS Etat Major is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Stars Jeunes Talents keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Mohamed Chennah and Gazelle agree another 3 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
César Abaya was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. US Moursal have kept their man, and Gazelle go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Abdramane Ndoram has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Abdoulaye Hissein is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Mahamat Doungous has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Abdramane Ngaradoumbe is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.