With popular Coach Kassaya Arage in long vacation in the US, Ethiopia Bunna’s absence from players transfer market turned out a major issue among club supporters. Cross-town arch rival St George, title aspiring Fasil Ketema and Bahirdar Ketema in the double to beef up their squads, many club supporters are getting worried that their team may not be at competitive level with the heavyweights in the coming season.
Ninth in the league table with 22 points from 17 matches before the season was suspended due to Corona Virus, Kassaye’s record (five wins, seven draws and five defeats) was hardly impressive among fans that expected a miracle on his arrival to the club for the second spell.
Despite the players’ transfer window not yet opened, St George, Fasil Ketema and Bahirdar are boasting the signature of best talents while Ethiopia Bunna is hardly mentioned taking part in the market. “I am in a big dilemma whether my team is among the heavy weights of Ethiopian Football,” a fan of Ethiopia Buna suggested. “It is not only me but it is the hottest issue among the majority supporters” he added.
Kassaye who signed a four year contract earning 100,000 birr a month plus benefits was not under any obligation in his first year. But many are expecting him to perform better in the coming new season therefore worried about the quality of players to join the team.
Though the fans are not arguing about Kassaye’s return home at the time of Covid19, many want to have a glimpse of what is happening about the squad building for the coming season.
Ethiopia Bunna supporters worried about the new season
“Abraham’s two years as Waliya Head Coach a waste of time,” Asrat Haile
With his two year contract as national Coach came to an end on 6th August, national coach Abraham Mebratu hinted that he may return to club coaching once he finished business in hand with CAF and FIFA. “I heard my name attached with some clubs. But I had no contact with any club until the final day of my contract. We will see the development together,” Abraham told reporters.
Since Ethiopian Football Federation President Essayas Jirra officially stated that contract renewal is not on the table, Abraham’s next stop is sure to be back to club football or return to Gulf nations where he made a name as Yemen Olympic Team Coach. But Abraham appeared not in a haste despite he lost the 5,500 USD a month job.
According to some senior coaches notably Asrat Haile considered the most successful coach both at club and national level, Abraham’s two years at the national hot seat was a waste of time for he delivered nothing to be seen. “Two years and we hardly saw a regular first team let alone a progressive national side” Asrat remarked in his brief stay with TV reporters.
Mentioning his playing adventure from club to national team before turning as successful coach both at club and national team, Asrat remarked that Abraham’s five wins in 17 international matches and his failure to steer Waliya a place in any one of the three tournaments is hardly to be considered a success story. “We are out of CHAN, CAF and Olympic qualifications, so there is nothing to talk about success,” Asrat remarked.
Great Ethiopian Run to host 2nd edition of 5km virtual race
Adapting to the ‘new normal’ Great Ethiopian Run is getting ready to host the second edition of its 5km Virtual Run which will take place in the week immediately before Ethiopian New Year from 6 to 10 September 2020.
A total of 1,000 participants of all ages and from all parts of the world are expected to take part in this race.
Great Ethiopian Run is particularly keen for children and women to participate in the run, in line with its advocacy for healthy living for the whole family.
Next week marks the start of a 4-week social media campaign leading up to the run where incentives and challenges will be offered to those who register for the run.
Ethiopian Airlines is offering two return tickets to any destination in the world served by its network. These tickets will be awarded by raffle from among all run registrants.
Participants are encouraged to wear something yellow which is the color associated with hope while doing the race. All participants will receive an e-certificate signed by Haile Gebreselassie after completing the run. At the time of registration they will receive a seedling to plant in or near their own home, as part of Ethiopia’s drive for a cleaner and greener environment.
Registration for the run opens started on 6th August 2020 and can be done from any smartphone. Payment for registration can be done through Amole or other optional online banks payments.
United States and European Union
Policy wonks in Europe often bemoan the fact that, because the EU consists of 27 member states, joint decision-making is often fiendishly difficult and the results are suboptimal. These same people often dream of a more integrated structure and naturally think of the United States of America.
It is true that the United States is formally integrated as one country, equipped with a federal system consisting of 50 states. The United States even sports a fiscal union, something that progressives in Europe want to accomplish as well, while European conservatives still resist it. Jacob Kirkegaard, Research Associate at the Institute for International Economics stated that despite all the hoopla, drama and frustration that was on display particularly at the recent European Summit, it is worth recalling that policymaking in Washington is regularly a far more frustrating experience.
Jacob Kirkegaard argued that there, two sides stand adamantly and unshakably opposed to each other. They are engaged in brutal tribal warfare. Moreover, politicians in Washington rarely, if ever, come to a bipartisan agreement. If that happens, it is usually only a short-term measure, meaning that very soon again the frustrating internecine warfare will begin from scratch. The results achieved are often extremely twisted and tend to satisfy mostly intransigent extremists. Naturally, within such frameworks, it is next to impossible to solve the very real problems.
Compared to that, hard though it may be to believe for Europe’s battle-worn summiteers and the European public at large, the EU 27 is a haven of strong internal logic, even tranquility. After all, it just set the financial frame that will govern the European Union for the next seven years. And it agreed on a heavily contested package of special recovery measures designed to address the fallout from the COVID 19 crisis. The key word here is “agreed.”
Jacob Kirkegaard noted that in a way, the recent Brussels EU summit once again ended like a papal selection conclave in the Catholic Church. Ahead of and during the election process, a great amount of horse trading is going on. Various factions are competing feverishly to gain the upper hand. It’s messy. It can very easily be nasty. A lot of “china” can be broken during the process, straining personal relationships. But in the end, invariably so far, white smoke has risen.
Compare that to the situation in the United States. The United States federal budget is rarely, if ever, passed on time. To compensate for that, the United States federal government often runs on continuing resolutions and has great difficulty passing only annual budgets. Only the hard prospect of a government shutdown, literally, gets something accomplished.
Looking back to the precursor of the current COVID 19 crisis, the 2008/9 global financial crisis, the President at the time, Barack Obama, proposed a sensible infrastructure investment program to stimulate the economy and get people back into employment. That proposal was a classic economic policy response to stimulate demand. Given the constantly deteriorating United States infrastructure, it was also a very sensible substantive idea. Passing the required funds would be a sure thing in any civilized nation. Not so in the United States. There, the Republicans were entertaining notions that this would lead to state socialism.
According to Richard Phillips, a New York-based international financial analyst, talking about civilization, the Republican Party in the United States over the past two, if not four decades has been notable for talking a great deal about the need to be “compassionate.” Sadly, it uses that term in a purely cynical fashion, as a rhetorical tool to mask the party’s utter callousness and intransigence when it comes to sensible spending decisions for common people. At the time of the 2008/9 crisis, the Republican leader in the Senate Mitch McConnell only had one priority, to see to it that Barack Obama would remain a one-term president. With such torched earth approaches to policymaking, it is no wonder that the United States is no longer just treading water, but actually in rapid decline.
There is method to this madness. Richard Phillips noted that for decades, Republicans have been perversely proud of a dysfunctional government process that gets nothing accomplished. In essence, they never want to spend any public money, other than on defense. The only other laws they like to pass are tax cut measures for the rich. The sad news is that, owing to the minority protections in the United States Senate, and as a result of the United States Supreme Court often acting like a side arm of the Republican Party, the blockading experience from the 2008/9 episode is bound to repeat itself.
The Democratic Party front runner Presidential candidate, Joe Biden has proposed a $2 trillion package to invest in a lot of green deal measures. If elected President, he wants to enact it after his election in order to overcome the current economic crisis. His primary target? To stimulate the creation of jobs. According to Richard Phillips, one can firmly count on one thing: The Republicans will be opposed. And they have the tools in the legislative process to make their blockade stick. Biden will propose, and the Republicans will dispose or block it.
According to Jacob Kirkegaard, this is pure cynicism on the part of President Trump and the Republicans, given that they often claim to fight for “hard-working Americans.” Evidently, what they really mean by that term is multi-millionaires and billionaires. The particular irony, of course, is that not just Donald Trump, but the entire Republican Party has found special support among working-class Americans.
The next evidence for this absurd behavior lies right ahead. Jacob Kirkegaard further noted that to safeguard Donald Trump’s reelection prospects, Republicans in the Congress had initially agreed to rather generous, but temporary income support measures for Americans out of work because of the pandemic. These measures are now running out. Millions of people face an “income cliff”, a massive loss of income. Republicans want to stand their ground and argue for serious cutbacks. Faced with similarly existential threats, Europe has proven it can act in a determinedly more constructive fashion than the United States.
To conclude, it is not so much the legal structure, one country or 27 countries, but ultimately cultural values of cohesion and solidarity that determine whether policymaking ends up with sensible results. Compared to the extreme disunity and cynicism that rules the United States political process, the EU 27’s decision-making process, difficult and suboptimal as it was, nevertheless led to constructive results.
