ADDIS ABABA – The drama of the season’s Ethiopian Premier League football competition has continued in an exciting fashion. On Sunday the league leaders Saint George suffered a 2-0 away defeat at the hands of Wolayita Dicha in Sodo.
This was little expected prior to the game. Last week St. George dropped two points as a result of a 1-1 tie with the visitors Fasil City at the Addis Ababa stadium. As if this was not enough, they also dropped points in the middle of the week when they faced Adama City in Nazareth. This means they dropped 7 points in the span 7 days.
Their fans expressed frustration when they dropped two points in Adama. To make matters worse they added defeat in their package. Now they have 26 points from 15 games. Coffee had similar travel story.
They were in the lead for long. Then they started conceding defeat after defeat. That forced them to concede the driving seat to their rivals. The frustration of their fans led to the resignation of the club chairman Fekade Mamo.
After these continuous slide what will happen in St. George’s internal structure is still unknown but it is clear that the anger of the fans is evident. What happens to the giants of Addis? Both St. George and Coffee enjoy the support of thousands of dedicated fans. Both have foreign coaches and both have expensive international players in their squad but, this time both are not able to deliver. Same day, the league competition took place in other venues.
Hawassa City who travelled to Mekele returned home collecting the full three points with a 1-0 win over the bottom side Dedebit. With only four points Dedebit are 16th from 16 teams. With this trend the one time Ethiopian Premier League champions Dedebit are highly likely to relegate at the end of this season. Bahir Dar City dropped two points with a goalless tie with the visiting side Adama City.
The good part at this time is that in all parts of the country there has been no crowed disturbance in and around the stadium. To be precise, no crowed disturbance has been registered after the Hawassa City-St. George encounter here at the Addis Ababa stadium two months ago.
As a result of that crowed disturbance the match was interrupted and played the next day in a closed stadium. One can conclude from this fact that sharp and severe decision of the federation forced all club fans to go back to their senses and respect the fairplay rule in the wake of that incident.
Herald February 12/2019
BY SOLOMON BEKELE
