Plan hands over 1,000 footballs

Plan Bangladesh, a non-government organisation working on betterment of the plight of children, yesterday handed over one thousand footballs to the BFF authorities ahead of the National Football Islami Bank Tournament which begins on Thursday.
As one of co-sponsors of the nationwide school football tournament, Plan Bangladesh had promised to provide 10,000 China-made footballs and the first shipment of one thousand of those footballs reached on Monday as the National Board of Revenue exempted all taxes on the shipment.
“We were in doubt whether the balls will reach before the tournament. However, it is pleasing for us that 1000 balls have already arrived and another 5,000 balls are expected to arrive by the next five days. The remaining four thousand are expected to reach here by January 5,” said Plan Bangladesh's acting country director TIM Zahid Hossain at a press briefing at the BFF House yesterday.
“As we work on children, we accepted the proposal when we were offered and we believe a new group of leadership will be created through this tournament,” said Hossain.
BFF School Committee's chairman Mahfuzur Rahman said the first country-wide school football tournament under the current committee is going to set a record of using 10,000 footballs in a tournament with approximately 100,000 footballers taking part in it.
10 schools from each of 480 upazilas are taking part in the tournament which will have four phases -- upazila, district, divisional and national phase.
“Each of the participating school will get one football in the primary stage and two balls will be given in the second stage. The qualifiers at the divisional level will get another three balls each,” said BFF vice president Badal Roy.