Sports Desk : dhakamirror.com
Football organizers and former national team players say the Bangladesh Football Federation has lost respect due to repeated false promises to bring world football stars and huge teams to the country.
After the BFF canceled a press conference to tell the media on the reigning World champion Argentine national football team’s June friendly match in Dhaka, it crossed their minds.
The press conference, which was cancelled terming ‘due to unavoidable circumstances’, was scheduled to be held at the BFF House on Wednesday at noon as the country’s football governing body provided an invitation to the media on Tuesday.
BFF president Kazi Salahuddin also talked to media on Tuesday when he claimed that the Argentine Football Association gave feedback to the BFF about their visit to Bangladesh in June during the FIFA window.
‘It is almost finalised; ‘yes’ more or less. They [AFA] gave feedback (to us) to come in June during the FIFA window. So, we can hope,’ Salahuddin told the media.
On Wednesday, an Argentine sports journalist Gaston Edul, who works for TYC Sports television, denied the BFF’s claim.
Gaston Edul twitted, ‘There are no talks between Argentina and Bangladesh to play in June. AFA is not going to advance anything until it resolves the continuity of Lionel Scaloni. And it is a priority that Argentina close the rivals for March.’
This was not the first time that the BFF had made such a statement to the media after the Argentine team visited Bangladesh in September 2011 and beat Nigeria 3-1 in a friendly match at the Bangabandhu National Stadium during Salahuddin’s first four-year tenure of presidency.
‘BFF will get Maradona in Bangladesh in 2020…This is the programme in 2020. I’m really looking forward to it and that is confirmed. He will come for the 100th birth anniversary of Bangabandhu and meet the PM [Sheikh Hasina],’ Salahuddin made the statement on December 31, 2019.
In January 2013 the BFF boss claimed that Barcelona had approached them with a proposal that they were willing to play in Bangladesh. If everything goes well, they may visit Bangladesh any time around August, when the club will be touring Asia.
In November 2019, the BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag stated to the media that English giants Manchester United were likely to visit Dhaka in June of the following year.
The same official also stated that the BFF has been working since October 2019 with the UK-based football agent RightAgent4You to hold a friendly game between Lionel Messi’s Argentina and their South American neighbour Paraguay in the November FIFA window.
Though, none of those initiatives taken by the BFF turned into reality, the BFF organisers, still were adamant to host Argentina in June this year.
‘BFF’s work is going on in a full swing on this issue [to bring Argentina],’ the BFF in a media release stated soon after the cancelation of Wednesday’s press conference.
Former Bangladesh national forward Ashraf Uddin Ahmed Chunnu, who is currently working as the team committee director at the Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club, termed all these BFF statements as ‘bluff’.
‘BFF has lost its credibility due to as such false statements. People have lost their trust on BFF, an organisation, which is responsible for country’s football development,’ Chunnu told New Age on Wednesday.
‘All these promises are completely ‘bluffs’. It’s nothing more than that. BFF is a symbol of trust for sports-loving people but it has now far away from peoples trust due to its organisers’ false commitment,’ said an annoyed Chunnu.
‘I don’t know why they do such kind of things, who suggested them to bring Argentina or others to Bangladesh. I guess, they want to divert people’s attention from their failures of development of Bangladesh football in more than a decade.’
Another former national football team player and National Sports Award 2012 winner Abdul Gaffar said,’ I want to tell you on record that it was a continuation of their publicity stunt.’
‘It was part of their show off. They don’t take lessons from the past and play with people’s emotion through football,’ said Gaffar.
‘They are trying to hide their corruption, what they committed and we have seen in media reports, in a superficial way by diverting people’s attention through this kind of false and charming commitments…I am telling you, they [BFF] won’t be able bring Argentina national team to Bangladesh and you will see that,’ he said.
– With New Age input
