Football's academic dream
The country's first football academy run by the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) at Sylhet BKSP closed abruptly after lasting just nine months with financial assistance from FIFA. Some three-and-a-half years later, BFF president Kazi Salahuddin once again dreams of building a football academy.
Salahuddin presented his vision during the BFF Development Committee meeting, which was chaired by the BFF boss for the first time since an ailing Badal Roy, the previous chairman, was removed and the committee was subsequently reconstructed.
“Today we discussed a lot of things and prepared plans on how to develop youth football in the next four to five years. We have taken a ground at the Fortis Sports Club in Badda and rented a building to accommodate players. Now, we need only furniture and hope to complete it within the next 25 to 30 days,” said Salahuddin.
Salahuddin also briefed the committee on how to conduct a country-wide talent-hunt in order to bolster the existing youth footballers' ranks with some new talented players.
Although they already had the facilities to continue training uninterrupted at Sylhet BKSP, the game's local governing body could only keep the academy from December 2014 to August 2015 under the FIFA Goal project worth US$ 5 lakh. The BFF surprisingly stopped the initiative even though the academy-grown players ended up clinching the SAFF U-16 Championship title in 2015, justifying the need for a youth academy.
The BFF's decision to form a new academy is undoubtedly good news for Bangladesh football but the question is how can the game's local governing body realise this dream without a sponsor considering that they could not do so before despite having financial assistance from FIFA and government infrastructure?
During a reception accorded to the SAFF U-15 tournament winning squad last November, BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag announced that they would send the boys to Sylhet BKSP again for long-term training but it turns out that those boys are currently at home following a four-nation tournament in Thailand.
“Seven, including me, will give away Tk 25 lakh each to deposit Tk 2.5 crore to initially run the academy and we will sponsor the academy until I manage sponsors,” said Salahuddin, without mentioning any of the names who came forward to provide funding.
However the staging of a U-15 football tournament, which was last held by the BFF in 2015, was not discussed at yesterday's meeting.
On a side note, Salahuddin's third-term at the BFF's helm will come to an end in April next year but the incumbent president is expected to run for a fourth consecutive term.
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