Founding the fist Ethiopian sports office.
In the first phase of the foundation effort, Yidnekatchew resigned from his job as chief translator in the Ministry of works to give full time service to the founding efforts. With the assistance of Dejazmatch Kebede Tessema and Ato Amde Michael Dessalegn then Mayor of Addis Ababa and Secretary of information respectively, he launched the first Ethiopian sports office in 1943 in an area commonly known as “Aba Koran Sefer”, in Addis Ababa. This office had to be closed in just two months, as the minimal gate income from the unfenced football field could neither pay his salary nor the office rent; let alone support cycling and boxing competitions.
In the second phase of the foundation effort; Ato Amde Michael availed a rent free office in the premises of the ministry of Information; Yidnekatchew who by this time was already married for a year, had to be employed as Administrator of the Menelik second Hospital to earn guaranteed income for his family, and avoid a repeat of the financial difficulties that caused the closure of the first office. Furthermore, Fitawrari Bekure and Ato Abebe Belete, both employees of the Secretariat of Information, volunteered to take care of the day to day works of the new office. Yidnekatchew became technical advisor helping only after office hours. This office successfully administered post liberation football competitions for clubs in Addis Ababa from 1944 to 1948.
Early Boxing competitions.
Early cycling.
Towards the end of 1948, Yidnekatchew suggested that the sports office which due to lack of funds, had long abandoned its initial ambition of organizing competitions for boxing and cycling; be realistically restructured as a football Federation. This also meant that the General meeting of football Clubs become the supreme power of the country’s only Federation. But high ranking Government officials who were members of the sports office refused to be excluded from their leadership positions in the increasingly popular football competitions, they thus rejected the proposal, claiming that the Secretariat of Information is the Supreme Authority of the country’s football as the sport’s office was in its premises.
This controversy led to the first General meeting of the football clubs. Representatives of Saint George, Key Bahir, the Army and the Imperial Body Guard held a meeting at the Racing Club in the Jan Meda and decided to appeal to the Emperor. With the help of Major General Mulugeta Buli, at the time Commander In Chief of the Imperial Body Guard, the Emperor accepted the appeal of the clubs and issued an instruction that acknowledged the autonomy of the Clubs in governing their federation in accord with internationally accepted standards and norms.
Following this decision, the Imperial Body Guard went further, and through the good office of Captain Wolde Yohannes Shita, later Major General; Yidnekatchew was given a one room office at the Jan Meda, together with one Telephone, one messenger, and a five hundred Birr loan for operating expenses; making it possible for him to write the first statutes of the Federation. Subsequently, a General meeting of all the clubs, held in December of 1948, became the third phase of the foundation. This meeting adopted the new statutes and elected Executive Committee members. Colonel Kebede Gebre (later Lt. General) from the armed forces was elected the first President and Yidnekatchew Tessema from Saint George became the first General Manager of the newly restructured Ethiopian football federation.
The first office of the Ethiopian Football Federation
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