The Abahani midfielder was banned for life for assaulting an umpire last year during a Club Cup match against Mohammedan.

"Most of the members spoke in favour of reducing Ehsan's life ban to a few months in our executive meeting today. But again they wanted to impose a heavy fine on him," said BHF general secretary Shamsul Bari yesterday.

"The BHF president listened to the proposals and he will give a decision," he added.

The BHF secretary also confirmed that former Pakistani international Qamar Ibrahim would arrive in Dhaka on either June 12 or 13 to finalise talks about his appointment as Bangladesh's national coach.

"We will sit with the sports minister and see what the NSC can do. We have to learn about Qamar's demands first. The Dutch-Bangla Bank has promised to sponsor us and we will seek its assistance regarding this."

He informed that the 21st National Youth Hockey Cham-pionship, to be sponsored by Acme Laboratories, would begin on June 13 in the capital. The 25th National Championship will start in July or August and the proposed six-nation under-21 meet has been rescheduled for the last week of September instead of third.

Bari also said that no decision had been taken about the replacement of two non-working vice-presidents on the executive committee.

The meeting also could not name a new committee for the Dhaka Senior Division League.

Nurul Amin, a BHF member who has been missing in the BHF action for quite some time now, has been replaced by Zahidur Rahman Pushkin as the tournament committee secretary.

Amin, who was also the grounds committee secretary, has lost this office to Haji Monwar Hossain.