BFF confirms Dutch duo for AFC Challenge Cup

Dutch coaches Lodewijk de Kruif and Rene Koster withdrew their preconditions and agreed to guide Bangladesh in the forthcoming AFC Challenge Cup Qualifiers, the Bangladesh Football Federation said on Tuesday. ‘The misunderstanding between us has been cleared and we sent a draft agreement to them,’ said BFF president Kazi Salahuddin. ‘We are hopeful that they will be arriving on February 22.’
Kruif and Koster had earlier set some preconditions for their 12-day stint, some of which seemed absurd to the BFF. The condition included that only the duo will have the rights to cancel the agreement while the federation would have no such right.
It also included that they will send a third coach if they fail to turn up and the BFF will have to make the full payments in advance. They also demanded the BFF to pay their taxes both in Bangladesh and Netherlands.
The BFF refused to bow down and sent a strongly-worded email, which also asked them to make their decision clear by Monday night.
‘I don’t want to undermine the coaches after letting you know the process in which we convinced the coaches,’ said Salahuddin. ‘All I can say is that the coaches will receive 50 percent money after their arrival and get the rest of the 50 percent during the tour of Nepal.’
Bangladesh, Nepal, Palestine and Northern Mariana Island will compete in the qualifiers and only the top finishers will qualify for the finals of AFC Challenge Cup.
The Bangladesh national team are supposed to leave the country for Nepal on February 25 as the qualifiers will get underway from March 2 in Nepal.
The deal for the AFC Cup was a good learning experience for BFF, said Salahuddin adding that
it will help them before signing a final two-year agreement with the coaches.
Kruif and Koster signed a Memorandum of Understanding with BFF in
January to become the coach of Bangladesh for
two years, starting from August 2013.
‘We gained some experience through this agreement and understood how expensive and difficult it is to sign qualified coaches and I think we can do such things more smoothly in the future,’ said Salahuddin.