EFF president Esayas Jira defends decision to cancel relegation in 2024-25 Ethiopian PL

Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) president Esayas Jira held a press conference earlier today at the headquarters of the federation in Addis Ababa. Jira, a member of the executive committee of CAF, defended the federation’s decision not to relegate any team from the Ethiopian Premier League this season.

Ethiopian football is rocked by the bold EFF decision as Mechal, Hawassa Ketema, and Sidama Coffee saw their results nullified. Sidama Coffee was stripped of their Ethiopian Cup glory.

Jira stated the clubs should have stuck with the proper legal channel instead of taking the matter to a federal court. “When they took the case to an ordinary court, we took the case to FIFA. We stated that there is third-party interference and FIFA got into the mix,” said the former club administrator.

Jira noted that the EFF had a discussion with the Ethiopian Premier League Share Company on the transfer regulation and why 14 other clubs were not investigated. “We spoke with the league on why the 14 clubs are not investigated. The Financial Intelligence Committee has now commenced the investigation.”

The decision is strongly opposed by Sidama Coffee. Nonetheless, Jira said the only revealed what the discipline committee decided months ago. “The EFF executive committee didn’t render any decision replacing the discipline committee. We just revealed what the committee’s decided on.”

On the decision not to relegate clubs, Jira defended EFF’s position in the strongest terms. “If we relegate the clubs, what would happen if any of the other 14 clubs that breached the regulation? Are we going to promote the others and send another to the second division? We should take this into consideration too.”

The president further renounced claims that EFF worked to support some clubs in their fight for survival: “So the decision was not made to harm clubs like Mechal and Hawassa and help Adama and the Tigray clubs. I strongly denounce such accusations. This decision was made earlier and I don’t know why some people forget about it.”

Pan-Africa Football understands that the league has begun to work on reviewing the results and the final standings. The changes will affect the table and top scorer chart.