The footballers of different clubs face a long lay-off as the Bangladesh Football Federation reneged on an earlier promise to keep the ball rolling for 10 months in a season.
After taking over the charge for the second term, BFF president Kazi Salahuddin had promised that the off-season will not be prolonged for more than two months and for that he will organise at least four tournaments in a season.
However, for two seasons running the BFF could not organise more than three competitions for top-level footballers as they skipped the much talked-about Super Cup on both occasions.
The professional league committee of the BFF has recently decided that the next Super Cup will take place in November, which means there will be no competitive football for most of the players for nearly five months.
More than 200 professional footballers, barring the national team players, will now have to pass an idle time for a certain period after the completion of their contracts with the clubs.
There is a chance that during the off-season a large number of players will take the opportunity to play matches in rural areas on hire, something which involves some injury risks.
The BFF did not draw up any programmes for the local players during the off-season so, in all likelihood, they will make a living by agreeing to play on hire despite injury fears.
It was alleged that most of the time a professional player does not maintain himself appropriately so more often than not he sustains an injury.
In order to earn some quick bucks, most of them take the field without warm-up after a hectic journey, depriving themselves of a proper recovery time.
The village-level tournaments are often played on under-prepared grounds. On top of that the professional footballers play with and against the amateur players, so the chances of getting injured due to a rough tackle are high.
Saiful Bari Titu, coach of Mohammedan Sporting Club Limited, is always anxious about the off-season and before the season ended he gave some instructions to his players but most of the time the advice goes unheeded.
‘In our country, the off-season usually means a large number of players getting injured due to the attraction of the on-hire matches. Even the national team players are unable to ignore such matches as they get the opportunity of earning a big amount of money,’ said Titu, the former national coach.
‘However, it is not a good habit. The professional footballers should be concerned about their health and try to keep their fitness level high with a daily routine of training and nutritious diet,’ he said.
‘Most of the time we see a large number of players fail to maintain their fitness to a desired level due to an uncontrolled diet, so the coaches have to work hard in pre-season to get the players’ fitness back to their liking. If the players themselves were mindful then the problem would not have arisen,’ he added.
Muktijoddha Sangsad Krira Chakra coach Shafiqul Islam Manik, however, blamed the lack of planning by the BFF. He claimed that the local players would have been kept busy had the BFF made a proper calendar.
‘The BFF announced earlier that they would host football competitions that would stretch for at least 10 months in a year but now we are observing that the season has already come to an end in the seventh or eighth month,’ said a disappointed Manik.
‘That is why more than 200 professional footballers have an inactive time during the off-season so they are getting the opportunity to play as a hired player,’ he said.
Manik also criticised the BFF president’s premature announcement of their wish to qualify for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
‘Nobody at the BFF is thinking about the development of football and the footballers. By ignoring the players’ needs, it will be impossible to realise the vision of the 2022 FIFA World Cup,’ added Manik.
-With New Age input
