Goalkeepers are remembered for their saves, and sometimes for their mistakes. This post originally featured a broadcast clip of a Welwalo Adigrat goalkeeper conceding an own goal. Below is the story of the club.
About the club
Welwalo Adigrat University is a football club from Adigrat in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. According to the Ethiopian Business Review, the club was established in 1956, broke up in the 1980s and 1990s, and was reestablished in 2012. Nicknamed the “Yellow Kings”, it has a large fan base in its home town.
The road to the top flight
The Ethiopian Business Review reported in September 2017 that Welwalo had earned direct promotion to the Ethiopian Premier League for the first time after finishing top of the Ethiopian Higher League, the second tier of Ethiopian football. Jimma City also won direct promotion, and Mekelle City joined the league as well, the magazine said.
According to the same report, the club’s finances changed after Adigrat University and the city administration signed a memorandum of understanding at the end of 2015 to take over its administration and funding. The club’s head coach at the time of promotion was Berhane Gebregziabher, and its technical director, Solomon Geberetsadek, said the aim was to finish among the top six clubs within three seasons.
Fans and the stadium
The magazine described how the club organized ticket sales and stewarding through local residents, with 64 people across eight kebeles selling tickets before home games and sitting among the crowd on match days. Club officials told the magazine the system helped prevent violence among fans.
Money and history
Promotion transformed the club’s budget, the Ethiopian Business Review reported. In the second tier its best paid players earned at most ETB 7,000, while the eleven domestic players it signed for the Premier League had contracts worth between ETB 500,000 and ETB 1.4 million a year. The Tigray regional administration gave the club ETB 15 million, and a construction company donated ETB 10 million and a 45 seat bus, the magazine said. Club official Dawit Abraha told the magazine that Welwalo is one of the oldest clubs in the country and that it lost its place when the Derg government did away with teams named after regions or ethnic groups.
