Ethiopia Football Federation engulfed in crisis

FIFA has confirmed that it will not send a delegation to a meeting on Saturday to restore sanity within the Ethiopia Football Federation (EFF). This means the internal wrangling which has affected the EFF for the past three months is set to continue. Fifa will not ratify the event because EFF boss Dr Ashebir Woldegiorgis has not been allowed access to his office.

"The president's denial to the headquarters cannot be seen as a return to normalcy," Fifa said in a statement.

The meeting is part of the road-map to normalize the problems within the EFF.

The EFF's general assembly fired Woldegiorgise in January for what they said was the "dismal" record of Ethiopian football and elected Ahmed Yasin to replace him.

However, the January meeting was not recognised by Fifa who met both parties to find a solution.

Fifa and the Confederation of African Football (Caf) released the road-map last month which was agreed by both parties.

The road-map said that Dr Woldegiorgis and his executive committee are the only leadership that Fifa and Caf would recognise but that an extraordinary meeting of the EFF should be held on 29 March.

The agenda of the meeting would simply be a "motion of dismissal" of the current executive committee.

According to the EFF statutes, for this motion to be approved it would have to supported by two-thirds of the valid votes cast by the official delegates in a secret ballot.