Archery’s plea to football

The Bangladesh Archery Federation (BAF) urged the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) yesterday to coordinate with them before allotting their Bangladesh Premier League matches at Shaheed Ahsan Ullah Master Stadium in Tongi, which has been exclusively used for the archers for the last eight years.

The BFF yesterday disclosed the 66-match first phase of the professional football league starting today by keeping three matches per week (overall 33 matches) at the Tongi stadium but the BAF protested the BFF move. 

"If the BFF holds 33 league matches at the Archery centre, then we have to lose 75 percent training time of the national archers, who are preparing to take part in Asian Games qualifiers in March and World Cup in April," said BAF president Lt Gen (Retired) Mainul Islam at a press conference, hurriedly arranged at the BAF office at Maulana Bhasani Hockey Stadium.

"We received the schedule of football matches this afternoon but the BFF did not discuss the schedule with us, even though the allotment letter from National Sports Council (NSC) clearly asked the football federation to coordinate the matter with the local administration and Bangladesh Archery Federation.

"NSC had allotted the stadium only for the archery federation in 2014 and we have fixed everything like water, electricity, security, cleansing and paying bills every month since. Who will take care of these things if football is played here?" informed Islam while adding they would also be questioned by the sponsors if they are unable to continue the training camp and ranking tournament.