The Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) is the governing body of football in Ethiopia. It was founded in 1943 and became affiliated with FIFA in 1953 and with CAF in 1957. It organizes the national football league and the national team.
In January 2008, dissatisfied with the "dismal" record of Ethiopian football, the General Assembly fired Dr. Ashebir Woldegiorgis, the head of the EFF, who refused to step down. However, the next month both the EFF and the CAF announced that they did not recognize Dr. Ashebir's dismissal. Despite this, the EFF membership refused to allow Dr. Ashebir access to his office. The standoff continued over the following months, which led to the FIFA suspending their membership 29 July 2008. As a result the Ethiopia-Morocco match scheduled for 5-7 September was canceled, and Ethiopia kicked out of the qualifying campaign for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. This crisis came to an end 16 May 2009, when Dr. Ashebir announced he would resign. Following elections for a new president 18 July, in which Sahlu Gebrewold Gebremariam became president, a three-man delegation from FIFA said that they were "satisfied with the result" and handed a FIFA flag to the new president as a token that the EFF had been readmitted to that body. Sahlu afterwards announced his priority as president was to heal the rift in the country over this sport, and to "facilitate a renaissance in Ethiopian football."
Famous quotes containing the words ethiopian, football and/or federation:
“The Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the leopard his spots.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Idon’t enjoy getting knocked about on a football field for other people’s amusement. I enjoy it if I’m being paid a lot for it.”
—David Storey (b. 1933)
“Women realize that we are living in an ungoverned world. At heart we are all pacifists. We should love to talk it over with the war-makers, but they would not understand. Words are so inadequate, and we realize that the hatred must kill itself; so we give our men gladly, unselfishly, proudly, patriotically, since the world chooses to settle its disputes in the old barbarous way.”
—General Federation Of Women’s Clubs (GFWC)