Crying for financial aid

Demands from national federations

• Increase sports budget

• Emphasise round-the-year training

• Strengthen monitoring on federation activities  

• Remove tax on sponsorship money

Opinion of state minister for youth and sports

• Holding of elections of federations currently run by ad-hoc committees

• Onus on organisers to monitor their activites

• Pledges to give highest effort to increase the sports budget

In a rare incident in the country's sport fraternity, nine days after being sworn in the sports minister sat down with the higher-ups of the national sports federations and associations to discuss their problems and prospects.

State Minister for Youth and Sports Zahid Ahsan Russel called on 53 national federations and associations to exchange views on existing problems, prospects and what to do in the future, with most presidents and general secretaries speaking on the matter at the National Sports Council (NSC) conference room yesterday.

The organisers briefed the state minister and NSC chairman on the problems, with financial crises dominating discussion. They demanded better financial allotment for each federation, long-term training programmes, sustainable planning, a fleshed-out sports calendar, equipment, gymnasiums, foreign coaches, space for offices, venues for tournaments, an annual general meeting of the NSC and removal of tax or rebates on sponsorship money among many other things.

"Those of us who are sitting here can change society. The existing youth is highly engaged with the internet and we can change this if we can portray sports in a positive way. For this, we need emphasis on round-the-year training," said Bangladesh Volleyball Federation president Atiqul Islam, urging the sports minister to give up hopes of winning medals on the back of only 90 days of training.

"If Tk 800 crore out of 900 crore is spent behind construction, then how will sports develop? We want a sports budget of Tk 5,000 crore," said Bangladesh Handball Federation president Nurul Fazle Bulbul. "Many presidents are not here at the meeting, so we don't need ornamental presidents in federations; we want the government to appoint dedicated presidents."

Bangladesh Kabaddi Federation general secretary Habibur Rahman said: "We need short, mid and long-term planning to take sports ahead. Although the organisers are cordial to sports, there is not enough monitoring."

Bangladesh Badminton Federation president Abdul Karim said: "The country's leading federations are getting external funding but small federations don't have such opportunities; they need more help from the government."

"It is not the end of our discussion, it is just a start. I have taken notes of the points you raised you raised as we want to implement our election pledges by setting up workplans soon. We will sit again," said Russel in his closing speech.

"If you don't have love towards sport, you should not have the right to be involved in sport. I want to urge the presidents and general secretaries to be more responsible as you all bear the responsibility. Sport will not progress with a big budget if you don't have love for sport," added Russel. "I will try to increase the sports budget as the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister are sport-loving persons."

"When I was the chairman on the parliamentary standing committee, I placed a long-term training proposal but that was not implemented. Now, I will implement that long-term training plan," said Russel, who was also unhappy that 21 federations and associations were being run by ad-hoc committees.