Football means many things to many people. Take, for  example, Tadesse Aynalem, the new chairman of the Coffee Football Club fans association.

30-years-old, Tadesse has had an unconventional career. He is one of four survivors of the 11 people who founded Tasfa Goh Ethiopia, a group that helped break the AIDS taboo  in Ethiopia 10 years ago. His first wife, the late Mebrat G. Meskel, was also a founding member.
 

A huge football fan, Tadesse is clearly a fighter. It has been almost 15 years since Tadesse discovered that he was living with HIV. And despite this, he has great dreams. He wants to have a son with the woman he married a few years after the death of Mebrat, and just as importantly to him, he wants to see Ethiopia play in the final stage of the football World Cup.
 

But as optimistic as he is of one day holding his own healthy child in his arms, Tadesse has profound doubts that he will ever see Ethiopia make it to the World Cup, or even the Africa's Cup, during his lifetime.

Because sadly, Tadesse, like many Ethiopians who know of the frustrating state of the game's infrastructure, realizes that it will take radical reform to get Ethiopia on the road to big time football. And that breaks his heart.
 

"For me, it is football that keeps me alive," he told Fortune.
 

The reason for the horrible state of competition level football clearly begins at the Ethiopian Football Federation.  For starters, Tadesse is sad seeing the hostility he thinks the Federation shows his club. But these disputes are merely symptomatic of a larger crisis.
 

To many sport commentators and veteran experts in the field, the problems facing Ethiopian football are complex and intertwined: from the absence of a football academy to the bureaucratic entanglements of those in charge of managing the industry. Underneath all this lies the pathetic situation of the Ethiopian Football Federation that is understaffed, under budgeted and caught-up in unending controversies.

The sorry sate of the Federation mirrors the dismal situation of the Ethiopian football as a whole. Established in 1944 -less than three years after becoming, once again, the only independent country in Africa- the Federation has always been headquartered in the Addis Abeba national stadium.
 

To this day, the Federation's 13 office rooms are above the stadium's  showers and regretfully reflect decay rather than long-years of proud standing, once enshrined by the late Yidenekachew Tessema, the founder and first leader of the Federation.
 

The rooms crave renovation. Staff members carry out daily responsibilities while avoiding water leaks pouring into their crowded, ramshackle cubicles in which Federation workers from varying departments work on top of each other in cramped quarters; the secretary general shares a room with the head of technical department and the administration head with that of the head of general services.

The only semblance of modernity comes from four Pentium Three computers assigned to the administration head and his secretary. Secretary General, Ashenafi Igegu  has no computer and neither, amazingly, does  controversial President (and dentist), Asheber W. Giorgis (MD). Telephones are old and sit on aging office furniture.
 

The glaring lack of facilities moves  beyond the office. When visiting international teams come to play  Ethiopia, the Federation must scramble and beg for buses to transport players. The one bus,  mini bus and two vehicles in its fleet are not enough to undertake daily business.
 

It is from these uninspiring auspices that the Federation tackles seven division categories and the 35  teams it oversees every year, and that ever-quixotic project of getting Ethiopia's national team to an international competition of consequence.
 

Clearly, what the Federation needs is funding. These infrastructural embarassments are reminders of the severe lack of funds suffered by Ethiopian football overall. But finding funds would first have to address paying back the crushing 2.4 million Br of debt owed not only by the Federation to the Ras and Ethiopia hotels, and the state owned Berhanena Selam Printing Enterprise, but also to the two major football clubs, Coffee and St. George.
 

The Federation's primary source of income is from the entrance fees it collects from football fans like Tadesse. 70pc of this income is given to the club Its 30pc cut, Federation observers say, is not enough to foot its many bills, let alone help it improve the country's football standing to become a world soccer contender.
 

The Federation, thus, has turned to additional sources of income, including the 250,000 dollars it collects annually from the International Football Federation (FIFA) and a 300,000 Br allocation from the federal budget.

But marred by bureaucratic controversies, for several years the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture blocked the FIFA funds and ignored a request to increase its subsidy to three million Birr. In July 2005, the FIFA funds were freed. 

Federation expenses are growing, but income can be erratic: slow seasons cost the Federation five million Birr, while busy years, like the just ended Ethiopian fiscal year, cost it nine million Birr, according to its officials.

Struggling to pay bills, the Federation has turned to creative sources of income, but often these only amount to frustration. For example, the Federation tried to develop the stadium's centrally located 30,000sqm plot for commercial interests and collect rents, but the Ministry quickly dismissed the scheme. The area, the Ministry believes, is a common area shared by 20 different sports federations. Any income would have to be shared accordingly.
 

The complicated, intersecting interests ruling the area around the stadium (including the green area open to the public) is admittedly difficult to unravel, said an official from the city's Land Development and Administration Authority. Although the city recognizes the Federation's right over other organizations when it holds matches, city officials insist on never issuing title deeds or permit additional construction for the Federation (including building a new office). Any development must benefit the larger public, officials say. 
 

Indeed, wherever it turns its head, the Federation finds opposition. For four years, it battled bitterly with the federal transport authority Addis Abeba branch over developing the parking lot surrounding the stadium. The Authority was upset that it was not consulted before the Federation floated a tender to attract parking lot operators, as the law requires. The tender was cancelled (to the great relief of driving instructors who have used the parking area for decades).
 

Similarly, the Federation's acrimonious relations with managers of Shell Ethiopia led to the two year closure of the joint venture gas station on Ras Desta Damtew Street, before it resumed operation two weeks ago.
 

In keeping with this sorry trend, the revenues generated from billboards around the stadium never amounted to much. A whole year was lost following the end of sheik Mohamed Al-Amoudi Senior Challenge Cup and the MIDROC Ethiopia's exclusive deal with the Federation. Advertising was only resumed recently with three different companies, including BT Digital  Advert, although the deal is limited to match days.
 

The reopening of the Shell Station and advertsing is perhaps an uptick from the Federation's recent misfortunes. But some of its officials have yet to be convinced that this will fix the Federation's financial dent.

To them, the unique opportunity to turn the financial ship around was the just completed 18th World Cup.

Great financial hopes were pinned on a last minute 1.5 million Br deal between the Federation and officials at the Ethiopian Television and Radio Enterprise in which the Enterprise handed over advertising time surrounding World Cup matches to the financially strapped Federation.
 

Three months before the tournament, the Federation begged the Enterprise for the deal, convinced that their financial woes could be turned around with an expected 10 million Br of income from reselling the airtime to the Ethiopian corporate community. The Enterprise, afraid of changing a long established business practice, only agreed to the scheme a week before the opening match. They did so with the conscious project of helping the Federation.
 

"We were convinced that our decision to drop offers from individual advertisers and opted to give the exclusive right to the Federation would help the country's football development," said Habte Gemeda, head of advertising production department at ETV.
 

Officials at the Federation however,  said that the gesture was made too late to help them realize their original dream.

But despite the last minute decision, the Federation seized the opportunity and immediately selected Eza Advertising (owned by Solomon Asmelash) for the marketing of the airtime in exchange for a 10pc commission of all sales; the latter in turn subcontracted two individuals, Wubshet Assefa and Fistum Asmelash, to book advertisers.
 

They soon discovered that many traditional international cup advertisers were shying away from advertising in the World Cup, scared off by a sharp increase in sponsorship fee. The Federation asked one million Birr for a top sponsor, a colossal jump from the 25,000 Br ETV had charged four years ago.
 

Luckily, MIDROC Ethiopia swooped in as an honorary sponsor and agreed to pay two million Birr to run commercials of its subsidiaries throughout the matches. Soon after, state owned banks, insurance companies and regional governments came onboard for at least six runs, paying between 15,000 to 100,000 Br.
 

After all the last minute organization, informed sources disclosed that the Federation raised about five million Birr from the World Cup venture. Although half of what it had hoped, it seems enough to fulfill its 1.5 million deal with ETV and service its debts to three state owned enterprises, some of which have won court battles against the Federation.
 

So maybe, as Federation head Asheber optimistically contends, the troubled organization has turned a corner. Free from its more egregious debts and its bureaucratic wrangles (and its Shell station reopened) the Federation can now focus on its mission to take Ethiopia's football to the world stage.

Tadesse, and millions of Ethiopians like him, sincerely hope so. Even though it is just a game, Tadesse believes that football itself can help prolong his HIV positive life, even more so than the medication he  is advised to take ever since the government started the free provision of AIDS related medicine two years ago. Football, to its most serious fans, is just that powerful.