Roger Milla ‘Twist’ For Games

The Commonwealth Games will get a much-needed boost when soccer star Roger Milla joins his Cameroon compatriots this week. The legendary African footballer will fly down to Delhi to encourage the athletes from his country in the 12-day extravaganza beginning on October 3, According to sources in the Cameroon CWG squad, which checked into the Village on Sunday.

An official of the Cameroon team said. “Roger Milla is expected to come sometime this week”.

“Milla is supposed to accompany our minister for sports and physical education to watch some of the events in the Games,” the official added. He, however, was not aware whether the former star would stay at the Games Village.

Though football is not a part of the Commonwealth Games, Milla is coming to the Games on the strength of being the sports ambassador of Cameroon.

Easily the most famous name of the sporting fraternity of his country, Milla spends most of his time jetting around the world to spread the message of sports and goodwill.

Roger Milla achieved international stardom in the 1990 World Cup scoring four goals, each celebrated with special dance steps, which has become a trademark in modern football. A few months later, Milla visited Calcutta when he played a match for Diamond Club as a part of Mohun Bagan’s centenary celebrations.

In 2004, Milla was chosen by Pele and Fifa as one of the top 125 living soccer players and in 2006 as the best African soccer player of the last century by the African football association.

Currently, Milla is also one of the ambassadors for Qatar’s bid to host the World Cup football in 2022.

Milla, who achieved stardom at the age of 38 in the 1990 World Cup, was recently in the news when he accused the present day footballers of reserving their best for their clubs and ignoring the national team.

Milla’s comments, which were mainly aimed at Cameroon soccer, star Samuel Eto’ after the World Cup in South Africa, resulted in a war of words between the two football icons.

The condition turned so bad that Cameroon’s minister of sports finally decided to bring together the two and made Roger Milla and Eto’ to meet and sort out their differences.