The Confederation of African Football (CAF) organising committee met on Tuesday, January 18, as they discussed the poor state of the pitch in Douala and whether Africa Cup of Nations matches may need to be moved from the arena.
Cameroon's largest city has hosted just four games so far at the Japoma Stadium, with another six to come.These include a semi-final, two quarter-finals and a last 16 clash.
Each of the six stadiums being used for the tournament has hosted two matches back-to-back on the same day.
The state of the pitch in Douala was thrown into focus by Sierra Leone's last-gasp equaliser against Ivory Coast in their Group E meeting on Sunday, January 16.
Ivorian goalkeeper Badri Ali Sangare was caught out as he seemingly lost his footing as he attempted to smother the ball to prevent it going for a corner only to fumble it into the path of gleeful goalscorer Alhaji Kamara.
Even then the Sierra Leone forward had to recover from his own slip on the surface in order to put the ball into the open goal.
Later that evening, defending champions Algeria were beaten 1-0 by Equatorial Guinea in a scrappy encounter.
Algeria coach Djamel Belmadi, whose team have played both their games on the pitch so far, criticised the playing surface from the first day it hosted games.
"I am not saying that it's catastrophic, but it's not a level that would allow total fluidity and what we expect for big tournaments like the Nations Cup," the Algerian coach stated.
Samuel Eto'o who is the Cameroon Football Federation (FECAFOOT) president noted that nothing would be changed.
"I will not say anything about Japoma Stadium, but I just want to tell the officials of Algeria and Cote d'Ivoire, that even the FIFA president wanted to change the date of AFCON and could not. We are not here to please anyone or give gifts," Eto'o stated.
The Japoma Stadium was opened in late 2020, and first used when Cameroon hosted the African Nations Championship, a tournament for African footballers based in their own domestic championships, in January 2021.