ADDIS ABABA – The draw of the season’s Ethiopian Premier League, EPL, that is set to begin on November 23, will take place on November 15, the newly formed League Committee announced.
According to the statement of the Committee, the rule of the competition will be discussed ahead of the drawing ceremony. The rule of the competition will be drafted by the newly formed Disciplinary and competition sub-Committee.
The League Committee further noted that after travelling to assess different pitches the committee suspended three stadiums making them unfit to host the season’s league matches. These are the Dire Dawa stadium, Sebeta and Wolkite stadium’s.
The home teams were advised to have different home pitch to host the visitors. Other three venues – Hosaen-Hadiya, Wolayita Sodo, and Jima stadiums – were also told to make some amendments.
The season’s EPL will be managed by the newly formed League Committee, according to the federation. The head of this committee is Fekade Mamo who is the board chairman of Coffee FC. The other members of the committee include representatives from the Amhara, Oromia, and the Southern regional states. The chairman Fekadu is the Addis Ababa representative.
The committee earlier made it clear that their stadiums need to have fences that separate the fans from the pitch and the wings of the fans seat are not separated by fences,
In addition to this all stadiums must have shower rooms, dressing rooms and parking for the guest teams. The local administration is responsible to protect the guest teams and to provide peace and security in the area.
The participants in the committee meeting expressed delight by the bold measure taken by the newly formed League Committee. There has always been security breach in and around the stadium.
The hope is that regional stadiums will make the minimum requirement a stadium must fulfill. Though the committee requested the venue must be up to the world standard, for the time being this cannot be done due to various hurdles of which one is financial constraints.
What was said by the League Committee was that the regional administrations have agreed to fulfill the request made at this time. “Invariably all agreed to make amendments as per the request in the shortest possible time,” the League Committee said.
The Ethiopian Herald October 29, 2019
BY SOLOMON BEKELE
