Bangladesh are looking to appoint a foreign coach for national football team before the Bangabandhu Cup in January, the Bangladesh Football Federation president Kazi Salahuddin said on Saturday. The BFF made its intention clear after interim coach Saiful Bari Titu expressed his inability to continue during a meeting with Salahuddin at his office on Saturday. Salahuddin told reporters that he would like to appoint a foreign coach on trial basis as soon as possible as Titu himself urged him to do so.
‘I personally believe that a foreign coach is what we need at the moment and Titu also told me to look for a coach,’ said Salahuddin.
‘I believe that a local coach cannot handle our national team in the long term.’
‘The main problem of our team for the last three years is that they concede goals from set-pieces every time.
‘Since the foreign coaches couldn’t solve the problem, I don’t think any local coach can do it either,’ said BFF president.
Titu said that there are certain issues which made him propose for a foreign coach for the national team even though he was unwilling to share those issues with the media.
‘It’s not such that I think I am not capable for this job or I am running away from the responsibility,’ Titu said.
‘But there are certain issues which I told the president. I was not willing to share those with the media.’
Titu was appointed as interim coach after the BFF sacked Dutch coach Lodewijk de Kruif in October.
Titu guided Bangladesh in the two-match FIFA friendly series against Sri Lanka at home where Bangladesh won one match and drew the other.
This is the third time Titu has been in-charge of the national team.
He guided the team in an interim basis on two occasions – from February to August 2010 and from September to December 2012.
-With New Age input
