Anti-Salahuddin alliance meets BCB boss
An alliance of football organisers and former footballers met with Bangladesh Cricket Board president Nazmul Hasan requesting him to explain the current state of Bangladesh’s football to prime minister Sheikh Hasina. The move came ahead of the Bangladesh Football Federation election on April 30 with the group strongly opposing the reelection of incumbent Kazi Salahuddin as BFF president.
Titled as ‘Bachao Football’ (salvage football) the alliance alleged Salahuddin and the executive committee of the federation of ‘destroying country’s football’.
Even though the alliance is led by Sheikh Jamal Dhanmondi Club president Manjur Kader and director in-charge of Mohammedan Sporting Club Lokman Hossain Bhuiyan but the officials of those clubs were absent in the meeting.
A group of former players like—Golam Sarwar Tipu, Jakaria Pintoo, Protap Sanker Hazra, Ashrafuddin Ahmed Chunnu, Shamsul Alam Manzu, Abdul Gaffar, Kayser Hamid and Sheikh Mohammad Aslam including some organisers—met with the BCB president in his Gulshan residence on Wednesday.
They alleged that Salahuddin has been trying to use Prime Minister’s name for retaining the post of BFF president in the forthcoming election, if he is successful his committee will continue to ruin country’s football.
After the meeting former national player Manzu said they met with the BCB president for preventing the conspiracy of Salahuddin.
‘The BFF has become a guardian-less organisation,’ Manzu told reporters after the meeting.
‘Everybody knows that Papon Bhai [Nazmul Hasan] is one of the main guardians of country’s sports so we came here to seek his assistance.
‘We explained the current situation of the football to him and requested him to raise the matter to the Prime Minister.’
Manzu demanded that under the current committee the country’s football reached near to demise.
‘We hope Papon Bhai will explain actual scenario to the prime minister.
‘We want a see a group of eligible and honest people take the responsibility of BFF after throwing away the bad guy.’
BCB president, who helped resolve the crisis of local hockey last year, said he learnt everything from the former players and organisers and he will raise the matter to the prime minister.
‘I will try to raise the matter to ‘those places’ within short time where they [the players and organisers] wanted to inform,’ Nazmul told reporters.
‘Actually they want to bring a change in the BFF and they want to change the current situation of football so that they came to me,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Salahuddin questioned the contribution of ex-players, saying that they are mostly detached from football.
‘I just want to know who are they, are they footballers,’ Salahuddin told reporters after he came to know about the meeting. ‘If they are footballers or something like this what was their contribution for football in the last 10 years.’
‘There are some people who have been living abroad for last 10 years and suddenly they returned and asking about the development of Bangladesh football.
‘I don’t want to ask where they went as a footballer. This is just a stunt before the BFF election.’
-With New Age input
