The incumbent Ethiopian Football Federation’s executive body is the worst ever cabinet to lead the country’s football according to NAHOO TV Sport talk show anchorman Ashenafi Zelele. “I have never come across such a do-nothing EFF governing body,” Ashenafi remarked in his show.
Lack of transparency and unnecessary spending for procuring a building, little or no effort to fix a sponsorship deal, a controversial deal with Sport Kits producing company UMBRO, a 15,000 birr per day car rental for EFF President Ato Essayas Jirra, a shocking 26 occasions of back and forth travel out of the country in the name of Ethiopian Football, are of the few sins mentioned by Ashenafi and his colleagues on the show.
“Why is a federation that boasts an empty coffer and cancels international fixtures for lack of funding in such haste to procure a 95 Million Birr building,” asked one of the talk show participants while the other enquired if the frequent travel profited Ethiopian Football.
The press conference given by Ato Essayas and his vice Colonel Awol Abdulrakim was also mentioned in the show where the couple gave a statement focused on illustrating how a profitable contract was signed with UMBRO. It is 420 national jerseys a year free of charge with UMBRO to benefit from shirts to be on sale for tens of millions of Ethiopian Football fans. The President and his Vice President were steeping the issue questionably, after all EREA Sport got away with a USD one million, claim despite supplying inferior quality shirts. How, they asked, did UMBRO come into the picture before the dispute was settled. EFF Executive Ato Yosef Tesfaye was also mentioned as the person who approached the federation in the name of UMBRO, the very company that gave the local distribution rights to Josambin Sport owned by Ato Tesfaye. The USD one million, deal appeared to be washed, dried and ironed among the country’s football governing body.
Nahoo Sport stated that all credit went to Walya Birra’s sponsorship deal, to the former EFF President Juneidin Basha yet Issayas and his cabinet were unlikely to find a new source of finance. A huge future development plan without financial resources means nothing other than report consumption.
The new deal with UMBRO seems to blindfold the public. Over two million jerseys were sold out to Ethiopian Football fans at the South African Cup final where Ethiopia returned to the stage after three decades of absence. What a mouth watering deal any one in business would jump into with no life belt.