Kazi Salahuddin-led combined panel on Friday released their manifesto for the forthcoming elections of the Bangladesh Football Federation emphasising on the importance of spreading football across the country. During Salahuddin’s tenure as the BFF president for the last eight years, the combined panel was mostly focused on Dhaka-based football.They were criticised for their lack of holding football outside the capital and the football activities in the district level became irregular which also affected the national team’s performances.
The panel, formed mostly with the incumbent committee members, pinned a total of 25 points at a city hotel on Friday.
In the manifesto, the panel also pointed 24 achievements that they have gained in the last eight years.
The panel promised to give financial and technical assistance to all the clubs to form Under-14, Under-16 and Under-18 teams and extend all necessary support to the district football associations to bring out talents from nook and corner of the county.
They also showed aspiration to develop the BFF Football Academy in Sylhet as they have already signed a long-term agreement with a private company to attain international standard for the academy, which they think can re-open in next June-July should they be elected.
Not only Sylhet academy, the panel also wants to build football academies in every divisional city first and subsequently in districts and Upazillas.
Salahuddin-led alliance wished to build an international-standard fitness centre at the BFF House in Motijheel and bring international standard coach, goalkeeping coach, fitness instructor and nutrition expert for the national team.
They also promised to host some tournaments like National Championship (Sher-e-Bangla Cup) and Club Cup that have gone into oblivion.
In absence of Salahuddin, unopposed re-elected senior vice-president Salam Murshedy and chief co-coordinator of combined panel Tarafdar Ruhul Amin announced the manifesto.
Salam said they will try to get more assistance from the government to develop the game.
‘As we don’t have financial support of our own, we will try to convince the government to allocate a budget for football annually,’ he said adding that, ‘If we get elected we will work for the implementation of the manifesto.’
Salam claimed that money will not be a problem to make their manifesto successful as they have many stakeholders who will come forward to extend their support.
‘Each of the point of manifesto is important. Our main target is to build football academies, make school, district and pioneer football stronger and spread the game across the country. Money will be no problem,’ he said.
-With New Age input
