BFF launches new academy with same old promise

The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) officially inaugurated its Elite Football Academy at Birshreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium yesterday after their first two academies in Sylhet and Dhaka could hardly produce any notable footballers.

Some 51 budding booters, picked from talent hunt programmes across the country, will receive training round the year and use the dormitory and astro-turf of the stadium which however remains busy to hold all types of football matches except the top-tier ones of Bangladesh Premier League.

The local game's governing body had previously started its first academy in Sylhet BKSP in late 2014 under the FIFA Goal project worth US$ 5 lakhs but BFF closed the academy, citing financial constraints, after running it only eight months from November 2018 to June 2019.

Later, ahead of the 2019 BFF elections, the BFF convinced the garment-oriented Forties Group to kick-start the new academy's activities in Badda under the supervision of foreign coaches but it didn't last long as well.

As professional football clubs are seemingly reluctant to groom their youth products in line with clubs' licensing conditions, the BFF took the latest initiative in producing quality players. However, the question of how long can the BFF run the academy has already been raised following their failure in the first two initiatives which lacked proper vision and planning.

"It's the start of a new era. We know we can't achieve anything with only one academy. We aren't financially as strong as China, who opened 300 academies last year, but I'm promising to build five to seven football academies within two years," said BFF president Kazi Salahuddin, as he had typically told the media before, during the inauguration ceremony in which Zahid Ahsan Russel MP, the State Minister for Youth and Sports, also attended. 

Compared to neighbouring nations like India, Nepal and Bhutan who run academies and get dividends from home-grown players playing in the national teams, BFF has historically been reluctant to bear such responsibility.

"The clubs of 90 percent countries across the world take responsibility for grooming players but our clubs aren't capable, and that's why we took the responsibility on our shoulders this time," added Salahuddin.

Now it remains to be seen whether BFF can effectively run its academy to produce quality players who can change the course of fate of the national team in the long run.