St. George & Dedebit FC in African Clubs Competitions
Addis Ababa – Ethiopian Premier League Champion St. George FC and Ethiopian Cup Winners Dedebit FC will travel to Angola and Tanzania respectively this week to compete in CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup preliminary rounds.
Dedebit FC, which is making its debut in African clubs competitions, will travel to Dar es Salaam tomorrow to face Young Africans of Tanzania and St. George will take on Club Recreativo Caála
of Angola on Sunday. The return leg matches will take place the week of February 11-13, 2011 in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopian clubs have never faced an Angolan side in African clubs competitions.
Since both teams will play their return leg matches the same week in Addis Ababa, it is possible that one team will play on Saturday and the other on Sunday or they both can play on Sunday at Addis Ababa Stadium and Abebe Bikila Stadium.
The winner of Dedebit vs Young Africans matches will face Haras El Houdoud of Egypt, which eliminated Banks SC of Ethiopia in last year’s Confederations Cup.
If St. George eliminates its Angolan opponent, it will face El Hilal of Sudan, currently led by former Saints’ coach Micho of Serbia.
Trouble Brewing in Tanzania
Meanwhile, The Guardian newspaper in Tanzania reported that neither Young Africans nor the Tanzanian Football Federation is aware of Dedebit’s arrival.  Embattled Yanga chairman Lloyd Nchunga said the match is supposed to take place on Friday but still there is a possibility for rescheduling.
With less than 72 hours before the kick off, Nchunga admitted that the entire preparations for the match are still far from completion.
So far, nothing has been done with regard to entrance fee, hotel accommodation for the visitors, and other miscellaneous items for the match.
Nchunga declined to elaborate further on the Dedebit’s match as the telephone line went dead for no apparent reason.
Over the past one week, Yanga has been embroiled into internal crisis that culminated to the resignation of Secretary General Lawrence Mwalusako.
The crisis has also frustrated their Serbian coach Papic, who has also lost interest with the Mainland premier soccer league pace makers.
Young Africans, which are not strangers to Ethiopian clubs, are one of the two most successful sides in Tanzania where they’ve won the league championships 17 times, including four times (2006, 2007, 2008 & 2009) in this decade. They’ve also won the Tanzania Cup on 3 occasions.
St. George’s rival Club Recreativo Caála, which finished runner-up last year in the Angolan Championship is located in the city of Caála, 386 miles south of the capital Luanda. The club was founded in 1944.
As part of its preparation for its encounter with Saint George, the club trained in Portugal for one week.
