By Michael Samson

Three times European footballer of the year Mitchell Platini crowned as the new president of the world strongest and richest European football federation (UEFA). The 52 years old Platini who won every accolade except world cup is Frances most famous footballer who captained France national side to the 1984 European championship title. Platini succeeded 77 years old former FIFA patriarch Lenhart Johnson to lead the association into new chapter.

Tirunesh Dibaba kicks-off her season in record breaking form

Though five new records and eight seasons best time materializes, World double gold medalist Tirunesh Dibaba’s success in crushing her own 5000 meter record took the spot light of the Boston athletics championship. Many expected last season winner of IAAF best achiever of the year award Olympic gold medalist Mesert Defar would set a new world record in the 3000 meter race . However, twenty two year old Tirunesh Dibaba kicked off her previous world record despite the cold weather in the city. What is surprising about the win is that she only left her elder sister Ejegayehu Dibaba from double rounding.
Second in the latest IAAF world ranking, Tirunesh had been back from an extended rest to extensive training that she was so sure of her win even before the start of the race. Having her sister Ejegayehu as
pace maker and American Bergit Bening with a strong start, setting a new record time appeared a must although who to do it was undecided. At the 4000 meter mark missing her pace maker for the day’s cold, Tirunesh decided to dictate the race and made an astonishing final 200 meter dash in 29:72 seconds . Tirunesh made her dream came true finishing the race in 14:37:42 followed by her sister Ejegayehu. Currently leading IAAF world best athlete ranking, Olympic gold medalist Meseret Defar also won the 3000 meter distance finishing the race in 8:30:31 Though Meseret was much expected to crush the distance record, the morning cold denied her dream. The day’s cold not only made life terrible for only Meseret. Even Ukrainian Erina Vashuk who is considered as the big challenge to Meseret also appeared short of the expectations. Rather, the American athlete Shalane Flanag succeeded, grabbing silver following Meseret to the finishing line.
In other athletics news, Teiba Erkesso finished second in the Belgium cross country race. Leading the 5.6 Km race until the last few meters, Teiba surrendered her gold medal to Kenyan Gabet Keplagat. World youth athletics championship silver medalist Keplagat clocked 18:53 to win the race with Teiba coming second in 18:55.

Ethiopian Coffee further extend the lead

Back from the unexpected mid season break the Ethiopian premier league presumed on Wednesday featuring the two time champion Electric hosting last season surprise package Methara Sugar. The former champions with a foreign coach and in front of the home crowed were favorites to get away with all three points and made some progress in the league table. How ever the visitors under head coach Captain Melaku surprised every one returning home with full points. What is more surprising is the one who sank the hosts is their former striker Mulugeta Segebo. The striker stunned the home goal keeper with a long volley to open the score line just five minutes in to the second half. It took only six minutes before left footed Berhanu Bogale’s equalizer. How ever the visitors appeared so determined to victory run over the home team to score the winning goal through veteran Sebsebe Shegere. The hosts tried every trick at least to grab an equalizer but never to succeed.
In the days other match in the stadium bottom of the league table Nyala FC grabbed the first win since long time defeating Air Force FC . The one and only goal of the match came through the Ermias Kidanu in his second spell with Nyala. This is the first victory for head coach Wondemagne Kebede who joined the side just in mid season. It is recalled that the head coach remarked it is a matter of time to be back to winning pattern for he has good collection of players and a strong support from the club management.
On Thursday the week days anxiously awaited encounter between Ethiopian Coffee and Ethiopia Banks climaxed in a 2-1 victory for the league leaders. In hunger for victory after string of losses and draws Ethiopia Banks came with strong determination frustrating Coffee defenders time and again although far from target. While Banks were busy on the look out, the league leaders found the net twice to take control of the match. Last season premier league top scorer Bereket finally grabbed the consolation. Coffee’s 2-1 victory made him further on top with 29 points.
In the mean time Tikur Abay Transport FC traveled to Ambo to visit Mugher Cement to crush the home side unbeaten home run record. To the surprise of many the visitors won 2-1 to shot up on the league table to sit 4th with 20 points. Saint George with a game in hand is second with 25 points followed by Awasa Kenema having 23 points.

African soccer in half century

With half a century in the continents soccer history, the Confederation of African Football set 2007 as Africa Soccer Year and started year long celebrations here in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia one of the three CAF founding members.
Since the very start of the confederation in 1957, member nation’s increased ten fold. At the same time, the continents football developed to international level. In addition to the once in two years nation’s cup final, the World cup, Olympics, African Champion’s League and knock out (CAF) Cup are the major soccer events bringing together the continent as one.
So far in the 50 years, of the three founding members; Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan. Egypt is the only one to stay at the highest level, winning the nations cup final on five occasions. Including the first two 1957 & 59 Cup finals, the Pharaohs managed to dominate the event winning on three other occasions. Currently it is Egypt who are the defending champion.
Ethiopia won only once on 1961 while having the opportunity of hosting the tournament in three occasions. Being ousted for its apartheid policy, South Africa stayed away from the occasion until all time great Nelson Mandela came to power in 1996. The very year it joined CAF and blessed it by hosting the cup final, South Africa took the title for the first and last time so far. Sudan also managed to win the cup once.
In the mean time the West & North African nations made an astonishing progress in the sport, not only winning the nations’ title also a respectful place in world cup finals and Olympic Games. Known as the Indomitable Lions, Cameroon twice took the nation’s title while stunning the world, reaching the quarter final stage of the 1990 world cup final. In 1990 Cameroon reached the last sixteen only to go after a last minute defeat by England. Then appeared Nigeria to take the Olympic gold medal featuring the likes of Kanu, Amokachi, Okocha and others. Cameroon followed suit to once again claim Olympic gold, defeating world great soccer nations Brazil & Argentina. At continental level, the West African nations dominated once in two years the nation’s cup final taking aloft the coveted trophy on more than a dozen occasions. Cameroon & Ghana each took four while Nigeria made it twice. Of the North Africans: Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco came as zonal soccer powers with Tunisia & Morocco each winning the title once. Congo stood top on the South African list winning the title on two occasions while Zambia and succeeded once. As for the East African nations, many simply vanished from the nation’s cup final with the only recent time cup finalist being Kenya in 2004. East Africans appeared to be highly engaged in athletics sport in which they stood number one especially in long distance.
The current CAF president, Cameroonian Issa Hayatu, an athlete in his time, is the fifth president to serve the continent’s soccer governing body. The most popular CAF president is Ethiopian Yedenekachew Tessema who led the presidency for more than 15 years in which time African soccer reached the highest stage exporting professional soccer players in hundreds. Roger Milla, Tony Yaboh, Abede Pele, Daniel Amokachi, Nwanku Kanu, George Weah, Ben Macarthy, Mark Fish, Fill Masinga are some which grace European soccer at the highest stage.

Police officer killed in riots; Serie A and B matches suspended

A police officer was killed Friday when fans rioted at a Serie A game between Sicilian sides Catania and Palermo, prompting the Italian soccer federation (FIGC) to postpone all league matches this weekend and cancel next week's friendlies involving the national teams.
Fans rioted outside Catania's Angelo Massimino stadium during the second half. Police fired tear gas, which wafted into the stadium and forced the match to be temporarily suspended in the 58th minute with Palermo leading 1-0. Television footage from Sky TG24 News showed players struggling to breathe and pouring bottled water on their faces.
Police said the officer died after an explosive device was thrown inside his vehicle.
The violence continued after the game, in which Palermo beat Catania 2-1, trapping hundreds of fans inside the stadium as authorities sought to avoid further violence and stop people from leaving.
The ANSA news agency reported that nine Catania fans had been detained, but none was suspected of killing the officer. Police in Catania could not confirm the report early Saturday as all top officials were in a meeting or out of their offices.
FIGC commissioner Luca Pancalli called an emergency meeting in Rome late Friday, and announced that he was cancelling all games, the federation said.
"The decision to block the championships was immediate," Pancalli told a news conference after the meeting. "We cannot continue like this. What we're witnessing has nothing to do with soccer, therefore Italian soccer is stopping."
Italy's premier, president and other top officials quickly condemned the violence.
"I feel it is my duty to say that we unfortunately need a loud and clear signal to avoid the degeneration of the sport that we, unfortunately and dramatically, are witnessing," Prime Minister Romano Prodi was quoted as saying by Italian news agencies.
Prodi and President Giorgio Napolitano also said that their thoughts were with the family of the officer, who was identified as Chief Inspector Filippo Raciti.
Napolitano released a statement urging authorities to take a firm stand "against degenerations that demean the values of the sport and offend the country's civic conscience."
Pancalli added that the decision to postpone the weekend's remaining games was not enough, and said there would be more meetings Monday "to identify those drastic measures that will allow us to restart. Otherwise, we're not restarting the games."
The FIGC also cancelled Wednesday's friendly between Italy and Romania and an under-21 friendly scheduled for Tuesday against Belgium.
The federation said that another police officer was in critical condition, and police said dozens of people with lesser injuries had been taken to local hospitals.
Police defended security measures at the game.
"We're talking about incidents that happened outside the stadium and after the game had already started," police Cmdr. Piero Gambuzza told Sky TG24 News. "Police did not allow anyone with explosives to enter the stadium."The violence follows last month's death of a fourth-division team manager from injuries he received when he tried to stop a brawl during a game.

EAF organizes race for Ethiopia’s flood victims

Parliament need to hear the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth

I couldn't understand why the sport and youth Minister W/o Aster Mamo went to so much effort to hide the truth in her report to parliament.
In the first place less than two years as Sport and Youth Minister is too short a time to know the whole history of one of the country’s most notorious bureaucratic strongholds. Let alone initiate fundamental changes, knowing exactly who is doing what is not an easy task.
Therefore her Excellency should not be expected to perform the impossible The second thing is since she is a political appointee who had never been near sport associations or active in sports; the working atmosphere surrounding the Ethiopian sport is most likely alien territory to her. In my opinion it will take her a much longer time to have the full picture of her domain. Because she is simply not yet knowledgeable enough about issues.I feel she simply appeared in parliament bearing whatever statistics and information her lieutenants supplied her WITH.
Now taking the above two arguments into consideration, her Excellency W/o Aster had a ready made excuse for her ministry’s performance when it comes to the country’s football. So why she prefered to go that far to cover up whatever mess was done before her appointment surprised me a lot. Sure she should have enough information about Ethiopian football before her report. I am sure she did that. However, the big question is who are those who furnished her with the information she read out? Are they the very people who are out to save their skin before somebody comes with the axe? Are they the ones in a hurry to climb up the ladder by negative loyalty? Her home work, which I think she hasn’t done, is that she did not take long in select who should feed her the appropriate information before she appears to the parliament. If that is so, she would have asked those around her why Ethiopia is absent from the nations cup finals for so long and if they say it is because of the growing number of participants, she would confront them by asking how one of the other founding members, Egypt, managed to reach every cup final, in which time they took the title for a record five times. No one would dare answer her or they would tell her the truth, which has so many causes, one of which of course is the mismanagement at the football federation. Then she could have told the parliament in her report that Ethiopia does not have an efficient federation. Still she could ask them, is it not true Ethiopia was kicked out of the latest CECAFA championship quarter finals despite being the host nation? She could raise the question whether the premier league format is successful enough to bring a positive change in the country’s football. Are the regional clubs as competent as the capital’s clubs, not only football in standards but also in finance and organization?
Where is the much talked about youth soccer project? What is the standing of Ethiopian clubs among other African clubs? Forget Africa, where are our clubs at CECAFA level? Why is refereeing in Ethiopian football chronic problem? Why do we fail to keep foreign coaches at national level? Why did Garzietto and Raoul go back home in just two months? Why has Dr. Asheber taken so long to call the football federation’s national assembly which should have taken place no later than last August? What about participation at grass roots level?
She should have asked all the above questions before presenting her report to the parliament. Then the parliament members would see what is really the problem with Ethiopian football. With a report that skips most of the above questions, I doubt the parliament has sufficient information to help the country’s football which every one agrees is on its deathbed. Therefore, the report by her Excellency W/o Aster ended as a cover up miles from the truth. The parliament need to hear the truth and only the truth. I don’t think her Excellency succeeded in doing so.

Blatter visits Addis Ababa

For his umpteenth visit to Addis Ababa, world soccer governing body FIFA president Josef S. Blatter said that he dearly awaits Ethiopian national team participation in FIFA competition.
Arriving here in Addis Ababa to be part of the gold Jubilee celebration of African Football, Blatter remarked that one of the Confederation of African football founding members Ethiopia, with 70 million people needs to work hard to build a strong national side to have a place at FIFA competitions. “Ethiopia is a great country with a vast population. I saw youngsters in school so in love with football. Why not an appearance at the highest level. .” Blatter told reporters.
Recalling his first visit to Addis Ababa three decades back to lead the first FIFA program of African soccer development, Blatter said the continents dream of football at the highest level kicked off in Ethiopia and he is happy to be back once again for this historical event. “I always have sweet memories of the late CAF president Yedenekachew Tesema for his heart felt assistance for me to help the development program. I still have close contact with his family, added the president who had played an important role to give Africa its first ever world soccer cup final in South Africa.
In his second term as FIFA president, Sepp Blatter appreciated African Football’s half century journey now become a world soccer force with 52 CAF member countries. With so many world class players at giant European clubs and 52 nations coming together to celebrate 2007 as African football year the international community for sure gives the highest recognition for the continent’s football. Blatter said in his brief statement.