ADDIS ABABA – When Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed presented his government’s one year performance report last week Tuesday, July 2, in an unusual and articulate manner he raised the issue of crowd disturbance in the country.
“Though the clubs are called in different names, the money comes out from the government coffer for most of them. We have stakes in football but our football didn’t show the progress we aspire. The violence behind this becomes beyond the rule of law. We spend a hell of money for football but our football has been far behind the African standard. Considering this it is sad to hear the loss of lives of our young people during disturbance,” Dr. Abiy said in a clear and sober manner.
Something unexpected
What Dr. Abiy said is true. There are 16 Premier League clubs at this time of which 14 of them owned by the government. The two are partially under the government support. These are Saint George and Coffee. No one is fully independent from the hands of the government, that is.
In this light what the Premier said is true. The sad part is that the price the country pays during fans disturbance is more than the money spent. Last Year three fans died in a violent clash that happened in a match between Mekele City and Wodiya City. The same thing happened this year. One can say the Premier is well informed before he delivered his speech to the parliamentarians.
The first of its kind
The surprise thing is that it (the speech) was the first of its kind in the country’s 75-year football history. The Ethiopian football championship began in the 1943/4 season. What is registered along this wide period was that leaders either make keynote address or make pure expression of displeasure.
Emperor Haileselassie was the regular stadium goer until he was deposed in September 1974. When the national team earned the third African Cup in January 1962, the Emperor expressed extreme delight. Oddly enough, The Emperor attended the annual students sports festival, the military and the police sports day, the opening and the closing day of the kings Cup and the international matches. Sometimes he attended the closing of the local championship.
The next President Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam attended and handed over the trophy to the national team Captain in December 1987 when the team lifted the 15th East African cup that was held in Addis. Days after that victory the President had given plots of land to build a stadium on which a new modern stadium is currently under construction.
The next leaders, the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn didn’t attend the stadium during their tenure. But Meles once commented that he didn’t want to invest in the construction of stadium. Instead he said he prefers to buy fertilizers. This was a remark with negative connotation.
Dr. Abiy has never been at the stadium in
his one year and three months tenure but for giving proper address in connection to football clubs is the unique one and the first of its kind.
The past, present and future
Up to now, it is true that the country’s sport is run by the state fund. At the time of Emperor Haile Selassie different government institutions, the military and the Police, the schools and the University, and some ‘private’ institutions like the YMCA were responsible to run different sports. Electric Authority, Ethiopian telecommunication, Banks and Insurance, Railway, Cement factories and textile factories were active in football.
At the time of the Derg as most of the institutions were nationalized sport itself became fully operational at the cost of the state. The good thing at the time of the Derg was that the compulsory order of each club to form five different teams. This compulsory order helps to progress sports like table tennis, boxing, lawn tennis, basketball, volleyball and handball.
But his kind of structure came to a halt in
the wake of the fall of the Derg in 1991. Heavy investment continued in the field of football after that.
The last 20 or so years the football competition saw different format. The current format, on home and away basis, was introduced 22 years ago. By then the crowed disturbance was extremely low and it has widened the area that the format covered.
In 2013 the country managed to go through to the African Cup of Nations for the first time in 31 years. By then the southern region has contributed most of the national players. The opening up of the landscape really brought many young Ethiopians in to the main pool. That could be seen as an achievement. But slowly the sentiment of belongingness, the feelings of ethnicity, has grown beyond any one imagination. Then the new format reached its dark age.
Premier’s intervention
It is at this crucial moment that Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed intervened with a comment unseen in the past. What is to be done at this time?
This is a very crucial question. If the PM further goes and halts the budget assigned to football the consequence is disastrous: We fail even to see light at the end of the tunnel. True, violence has gone beyond the limit. True also, corruption is systemic rather than the exception. Under this circumstance one finds difficulty in writing prescription for the sick man in football.
One possible prescription is to order the Ethiopian Football Federation, the country’s football governing body, to study and submit a new format that will serve in the days ahead.
If all stake holders participate in the findings of the new format, it may help avoid repeat of the past mistakes.
The speech of the Prime Minister at the parliament was clear and sublime. It was also remarkably timely. But it was only the beginning. The most important thing is to go forward until the issue gets the right answer. The country’s Football awaits the end result!!
The Ethiopian Herald July 9/2019
BY SOLOMON BEKELE
