‘Irregularities’ in BFF financial statement

Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) vice president and Brothers Union director in charge, Mohiuddin Ahmed Mohi, has demanded that a probe committee be formed after he noticed massive irregularities in the BFF’s three-year financial statement.

The game’s local governing body recently sent the audit reports of its 2016 to 2018 fiscal years to the councillors for their observation ahead of the annual general meeting to be held on November 16. However, Mohi discovered that there seemed to be evidence of misappropriation on the financial reports.

“There have been huge irregularities in the income-and expenditure of the three-year financial statement worth Tk 17 crore, which was actually the income-and expenditure of the financial year of 2009 to 2015 and showing it in the financial year of 2016 to 2018 is illegal and immoral,” Mohi said of the two-page document which was sent to BFF president Kazi Salahuddin.

Mohi also claimed that two of the three years mentioned in the financial statement were audited by three different firms without consent following an annual general meeting. He also said that the audit firm mentioned that the vouchers on white paper were tagged against the expenditures, which is unacceptable.

Another observation Mohi made was that Tk 8.99 crore was included twice in the 2017 financial statement, first as a direct expenditure and then as an outstanding expenditure, which is also unacceptable.

The BFF vice president stated that the BFF took a Tk 8.10 crore loan from IFIC Bank while they were hosting the Argentina-Nigeria match in 2011 which is yet to be cleared and questioned how long the BFF would be liable for that loan.

Finally, Mohi requested BFF president Kazi Salahuddin to include his personal observations on the matter during the next executive meeting to discuss it in detail.

When attention was drawn towards these allegations, BFF senior vice president and finance committee chairman, Abdus Salam Murshedy, said: “A BFF member may have observations on the audit report but we have tried to do it in line with the rules and regulations and no misdeeds occurred.

“Mr Mohi is also a member of the finance committee, so why did he not mention it at the meeting?”