Nat'l school football in November

Bangladesh Football Federation and Education Ministry will jointly hold the National School Football Championship across the country in November in a bid to create a grass-root footballing atmosphere across the country.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two parties was singed in this connection at the education ministry office yesterday.
This will be one of the biggest school football tournaments in the country as some 4800 schools are expected to take part in the championship which is a huge stepup from its previous edition held in 2006 when only 130 schools took part. The tournament in 2006 is the first and only nation-wide school football to this date, where only district champions and runners-up took part. However, there has been a school football tournament held this year, which was only limited to Dhaka Metropolis.
Speakers at the singing ceremony informed that 10 schools from each of 480 upazilas would take part at the upazila level and the winners would compete at district and zonal levels before locking horns for the national level.
“To build a healthy and talented nation, sport is a very important tool along with education and football has good popularity and rich tradition in our country. I believe the introduction of school football championship across the country will play an important role in reviving football,” said education minister Nurul Islam Nahid at the ceremony.
The education ministry had introduced the Bangabandhu Primary School football tournament last year and this year they are organising the Bangamata Primary (girls) school tournament across the country which are being run by the ministry. However, this high school tournament will be completely run by BFF where the ministry will only provide administrative support.
“Of an estimated budget of Tk five crore, sponsors will provide Tk two crore for the right of title sponsorship while the rest will be collected by staging music concerts,” said Mahfuzur Rahman, chairman of the BFF school committee.
According to the MoU, the BFF and education ministry will jointly form an organising committee. BFF will manage funds, form bylaws, coordinate local administration, local clubs and organisations, ensure publicity and publication and provide logistic support, sports gears and dresses for the players.
The responsibilities of the education ministry are: to make the tournament success as well as ensure participation of all the schools. The ministry will issue a circular, to prepare necessary infrastructure of schools to host matches, to provide logistic support at local stage, take initiatives for the best players to get admission and provide scholarships and finally provide a token money for the tournament.
“I think it is the best time to roll football onto the ground from the grass-root level after the Argentina-Nigeria match. This tournament will surely create a footballing atmosphere across the country,” said BFF president Kazi Salahuddin.