Women’s Super League offers hope for footballers

With rays of light falling on the cut-out portraits of footballers like Sabina Khatun, Maria Manda, Sanjida Akter, Rupna Chakma and the likes in the neatly decorated lobby of a five-star hotel ballroom, the country's top women's footballers looked as if they were ready to perform on the ground.

The national women's team players were not only displayed on the cut-outs, they were also physically present and literally counting days to brace the occasion as Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF), in association with K-Sports -- a sports marketing company of the country – yesterday unveiled the idea of organising franchise women's football league in May with the participation of five to six teams.

"I and Fahad Karim [president and CEO of K-Sports] have been working to introduce the Women's Super League [WSL] for the last one year because Bangladesh Women's Football League is not a professional and competitive league. If we can introduce a league where there will be franchises, foreign players and equal distribution of national players, the league will be more competitive and the standard of women's football as well as skill of the players will go up, not to mention the financial benefit to players," BFF Women's Wing chairman and executive member Mahfuza Akter Kiran told The Daily Star.

WSL will be the country's third franchise league after BPL T20 cricket league and Hockey Champions Trophy.

"We have given them [BFF] an LOI [letter of interest] and shared our proposal. In principle they gave us a go-ahead. We have already done the groundwork and we will gradually inform everything within the next two weeks. I can say everything will be transparent because the corporate houses will invest in it," Karim told reporters.

Karim shared the proposal of holding the Women's Football League with the participation of five to six corporate houses, with each team having 18-member squads including five foreign players.

Terming the introduction of WSL as a challenging one, BFF president Kazi Salahuddin said, "I am supporting them because of two reasons. One is that the players will get financial support which they really need to continue playing and the second one is that the girls will get another platform to hone their skills and flourish further."

"Since our dream journey started in 2009, we reached to a place of trust in 2022 by winning the SAFF Women's Championship. The introduction of WSL is a big prize for us and we are really excited for it and waiting to play the league," said national team captain Sabina Khatun.

Midfielder Maria Manda said, "We don't get opportunity to play competitive matches in Bangladesh Women's League, but WSL will give us opportunities to play more competitive matches among equal-strength sides. I think the introduction of WSL will also help individual players improve their performance."