{"id":307257,"date":"2017-04-02T18:00:43","date_gmt":"2017-04-02T18:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=307257"},"modified":"2017-04-02T18:00:43","modified_gmt":"2017-04-02T18:00:43","slug":"song-thankful-for-support-following-return-to-cameroon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/04\/song-thankful-for-support-following-return-to-cameroon\/","title":{"rendered":"Song thankful for support following return to Cameroon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"story-body\" class=\"story-body sp-story-body gel-body-copy\">\n<p class=\"sp-story-body__introduction\">Former Cameroon international Rigobert Song has thanked the country&#8217;s fans and President for their support as he arrived back in Cameroon following six months of treatment in a Paris hospital.<\/p>\n<p>The former Liverpool player was taken ill in October 2016 when he suffered a brain aneurysm and was hospitalised in Yaounde where his condition stabilised before he was taken to Paris.<\/p>\n<p>Song returned to Yaound\u00e9 to a rapturous welcome on Saturday where he was met by dignitaries, friends and family.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"sp-pullout\"><\/aside>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going to say thank you to the people, to God and President Paul Biya and his wife because he did everything to keep me in a good way,&#8221; Song told reporters on his arrival at the Yaound\u00e9 Nsimalen Airport.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And people in Cameroon, I&#8217;m going to tell them &#8216;thank you&#8217; for everything they did when I was in my situation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To come out of a heart issue without a scar, I am thankful to God and the Cameroonian people. I am healthy thanks to the doctors, I underwent three aneurysm operations,&#8221; Song added.<\/p>\n<p>The 40-year-old joked that his return to Cameroon was &#8220;not an April fool&#8221; and said he could not recall the moment he fell unconscious last October.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t remember what happened, but after my situation I&#8217;ve seen a lot of things. People have told me what happened. So I&#8217;m very happy to come back and I want to say thank you to all the people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I opened my eyes the first reflex was to touch my head and I realised something was wrong, I was very far and I thank God for his mercy,&#8221; Song told the throng of journalists.<\/p>\n<p>Bernadette Song, Rigobert Song&#8217;s mother, was elated at seeing her son.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be here to celebrate the return of Song, I am overwhelmed with happiness. I joked that he left like a passenger without a ticket, but today he has come back on his feet. I thank Cameroonians and the presidential couple for loving him so much.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Poueni Francoise, a friend who went to Paris to bring Song back to Cameroon, described how seriously ill the former Indomitable Lion was.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was there when Song arrived at Pitie-Salpetriere (in Paris), operations followed immediately and he spent 40 days in a coma.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now, although appearing lean and with his famous hair much shorter, Song displayed his usual jovial nature.<\/p>\n<p>He acknowledged the Indomitable Lions&#8217; triumph at the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations and that his reception at the airport reminded him of the special welcome he and his former team-mates received after winning the 2000 and 2002 Nations Cups.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Lions came back with the trophy, what again, a retired person?&#8221; Song joked.<\/p>\n<p>As for his future plans, Song said he wanted to continue working as a coach for Cameroon&#8217;s football federation having undergone a series of tests to determine his fitness.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m going to continue my job. I&#8217;m ok now. I don&#8217;t have a problem. My problem is in the past now. It&#8217;s another situation. I&#8217;ll continue to work normally.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I will start preparing the CHAN (African Nations Championship) set to take place in four months.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<footer id=\"story-footer\" class=\"story-footer\">\n<div class=\"clearfix gel-mb+\">\u00a0&#8211;<\/div>\n<div class=\"clearfix gel-mb+\">Source: BBC<\/div>\n<\/footer>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Cameroon international Rigobert Song has thanked the country&#8217;s fans and President for their support as he arrived back in Cameroon following six months of treatment in a Paris hospital. The former Liverpool player was taken ill in October 2016 when he suffered a brain aneurysm and was hospitalised in Yaounde where his condition stabilised [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":307259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[142],"tags":[3,5810,5811],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Song thankful for support following return to Cameroon - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. 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