Reigning premier League champions Saint George and league leaders Jimma AbaJifar booked a place in the 2018 Knock Out championship third round fixtures while strong side Mekele was booted out after a penalty shoot-out defeat at the hands of relegation threatened Ethio-Electric.
A muddy knock-out championship at Addis Ababa stadium, Saint George defeated visitors Wolayta Dicha to 1-0 score line. With number of star players absent Saint George returned home with an important victory thanks to Mentesenot Adane’s first half winning goal. Though Wolayta Dicha twice missed golden chances at the final minutes of the first half, it was all about the home side dominating the show. The winner of Hawassa and Sidama Bunna match faces Saint George in the next phase.
A braid from Fitsum G/Mariam including a penalty, Mekelakya trashed out visitors Diredawa after a 3-2 home victory. Though man of the match Dagnachew Bekele grabbed two goals, the muddy field was more to the advantage of “The Army Side” that went through. Mekelakya faces Fasil in the next round.
A goal less away draw against in poor form Ethio-Electric, Mekele’s dream of a semifinal stage turned in to a nightmare after a 4-2 penalty shootout defeat. The two foreign players Nuhu Fuseiny and Achempong Amos missed from the spot therefore Electric made it in to the last six. Electric’s next meeting is against league leaders Jimma AbaJifar.
Ethiopia Bunna returned with a penalty shootout away victory against home side Arbaminch. Baptist Faye gave the visitors an early lead after a defensive blunder only to be cancelled out after just after seventeen minutes through Fekadu Mekonen’s equalizer. “We are battling for a trophy after six years,” Ethiopia Bunna head coach Didier Gomes told reporters.
Ethiopian muddy cup championship reaches third round
Ethiopian Bunna demolishes Hawassa
Nigerian Samuel Sanumi marshaled the execution at Adama Ababa Bikila Stadium, as Ethiopia Bunna demolished Hawassa to breathe hot air behind the league leaders. “My players are very determined as well cautious for we are seriously into the title contention,” Ethiopia Bunna boss Didier Gomes remarked.
After an eleven day interruption due to the civil unrest in the sea side town the much awaited showdown moved to Adama thus in favor of title contenders Ethiopia Bunna. In front of “The Brown River” sellout crowd it took only eighteen minutes to open the flood gates through lone striker Sanumi from a spot kick. Hawassa retaliated just a quarter of an hour later through Ferew Solomon’s equalizer from a penalty. An all-out attack from Bunna against defensive Hawassa, Sanumi volleyed the second followed by his third strike from another spot kick in first half injury time.
Back from the dressing room it was one- way traffic all through the second half Ethiopia Bunna added two goals through Samson Tilahun and Haile Eshetu to seal the score line 5-1. The hat trick hero Samuel Sanumi frog leaped into second in the top scorers’ chart with 13 goals that is just four goals shy of JimmaAbaJifar’s goal machine OkikiAfolabi with 17 goals. The heart swelling result means Ethiopia Bunna sits third two points behind AbaJifar and arch rivals Saint George.
Nearly three months without a win Dedebit FC defeated visitors Arbaminch to stay in mid table comfort zone with 37 points while the visitors camped in relegation zone with twenty eight points from twenty seven matches.
Perpetual champ Saint George for sale
The owners of Ethiopia’s most successful sports club, St. George, have announced that they will sell it to fans. The sale comes weeks after prime minister Ably Ahmed broke from decades of Marxist-rooted government policies and approved the privatization of state owned monopolies.
About 2,300 fans attended a meeting to discuss the sale. St. George, which has won the Ethiopian Premier League title 13 times since 2000, is owned by the St. George Football Association. It has been propped up by prominent businessman Abennet Gebre Meskel and the Saudi billionaire Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi.
The majority of a new company’s shares will be offered to fans. Companies will also be able to buy some shares. Likely buyers include St. George Beer, owned by France’s Castel Group, a long-term sponsor.
In the meantime the 13th time defending champions withdrew from 2018 Cecafa zonal club championship. A tight title contention among five clubs, and a knock-out third round fixture in a congested league season, led the Horse Riders to decline taking part in the zonal championship that takes place in host nation Tanzania.
DANGERS OF PAID MEDIA
A while back this column decided to label media outlets that substantively depend on either the state or the private sector as ‘paid media’. The reasoning: All private media (considering them as regular businesses) depend on advertisers/sponsors to remain viable. No adverts, no business! Here we are not talking about media outlets that are mere subsidiaries of monopoly capital under the auspices of various corporations. For example, the ‘Washington Post’ falls into this category; it is no more a freestanding media enterprise operating on its own principles, rather it is a mere media/propaganda arm of Amazon. The notion of ‘fake news’ is essentially derived from such unhealthy tie-ups (or complete subordination) between media companies and giant multinational corporations. Many of the state-run media, even though they are publicly funded (to a large extent), also depend on revenues generated from commercial interests/advertisements; hence the collective name, ‘paid media’!
The state media’s objectives include, amongst other things, the conveyance of positive propaganda about the state and its on going operations. To this end, the state media is systemically leveraged to push ideologies/beliefs favored by the current incumbents of the power that be, thus influencing the sheeple (human mass) in ways that are not warranted by the prevailing democratic dispensations on the ground! We need not go in depth about this aspect of state media, as we already have plenty of experience here in Africa. The important thing to note is: even the most powerful countries of the world system seriously leverage their state media platforms for propaganda purposes. VOA, DW (Deutsche Welle), BBC, etc., serve, first and foremost, as outlets to their respective states. Admittedly, the poorer countries of the world do not have much of a say in world affairs. They are usually instructed to endorse the positions/views of global dominant interests, even in their own local media, particularly in regards to economic policies. This is a clear case of the workings of polarizing globalization in the weak and compromised states of the periphery. As a friend says; ‘poverty is a socio-economic disease generated by the inequality that rich nations celebrate and poor nations imitate.’ How many of us know about the genocide that is taking place right now in Yemen? Why is the world’s sheeple not allowed to be aware of such aggressions? To expect impartiality on the part of the state media, in regards to such important issues is really naïve, to say the least! See Cunningham’s article next column.
Theoretically, the pronounced objective of the various media outlets of the world system is to convey information and analysis to the general public, based on facts and the whole truths. But this is easily said than done! By and large, what is conveyed by the global media (small or big), is not necessarily facts and truth, but rather tinted or even distorted information that directly/indirectly pushes the interests/views of payers/sponsors! For instance, if a particular incident/topic is deemed to undermine the interest of monopoly capital and its multifarious tentacles, which prevail all over the globe, the news will either be slighted or completely dropped off from significant coverage. It is this unhealthy dependence on advertisers that make the whole global media, at best, suspect. The old saying applies; ‘whoever pays the fiddler gets to choose the tune’! Unless there is a clear disconnect between the payers and their interests on one hand, and the conveyors of news, information, analysis, views, etc.; society will remain perennial victim of gross misinformation. ‘If you don’t read the newspapers, you are uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you are misinformed.’ (Mark Twain) Take your pick!
The main motive behind private media is to make money as well as become influential in the affairs of countries, a clear case of power craving! See Johnstone’s article on page 45. As making money from traditional media businesses become difficult, mostly due to modern informatics (Internet, etc.), the objectives of private media as well as that of the states’ are bound to coincide. Herein lies a grave danger! What are the alternatives? We propose the following. If countries like ours are to have an independent media, at the service of their people, they need to change the way people think about the whole idea of the media itself. Media has not, is not, and probably will not be an independent entity, rhetoric aside. It either supports/airs the views of the state, capital or the sheeple (or some combination thereof). One has to choose whom to serve amongst the above. Our version of a desired media is an independent/community owned media. It has to be a non-state, non-profit entity fully funded by fees levied on all forms of advertisement (billboards, radio, print, TV, etc.) After all, it is the sheeple that is always condemned to suffer from all the non-sense spewed out by the bamboozling commercial propaganda of stupefying modernity! See the articles on page 41 & 44.
The governance of independent media (an important aspect of the whole scheme) should be by kosher members of civil society. Moreover, democratic processes must form the pillars of its operations, because “Conscience is that still, small voice that is sometimes too loud for comfort.” Bert Murray. Good Day!
