Ethiopian Football is hard to understand even to senior experienced coaches. Shocking surprises and unsolvable riddles seem to pop up out of nowhere. The latest is Gebremedin Haile’s departure from Premier League Champion Jimma Aba Jifar to take over 4th place runner up Mekele.
Usually when a team wins the championship their leader prepares them for further adventures like retaining the title and international fixtures like the African Champions League.
So the reason that Gebremedin ran away from the champion team to lead the rebuilding Mekele is a riddle in need of some sorcery. One assumption is that Gebremedin jumped away from AbaJifar looking for big money.
The migration of seven players who played key roles in Jimma AbaJifar’s championship dream to Mekele following their boss Gebremedin is the other bizarre phenomena. Of course money is a priority for these players but the incident shows that they have no dream to play at a higher level that is African Champions League next season. They would rather collect fat checks. Ask these players their dream and sure they want to represent Ethiopia and play for a big European club. What a nation with its football cursed for good.