An official-heavy tour

The Bangladesh U-16 football team left for Qatar last night, with a mega contingent of 31 members including 23 players and the rest being team officials and coaching staff, to participate in the AFC U-16 Championship Qualifiers.

The Bangladesh team, which recently played in the SAFF U-15 Championship where they were eliminated from the semifinals, will play three individual matches against Group E opponents United Arab Emirates, Yemen and Qatar from September 20 to 24.

While in recent times Bangladesh's participation in AFC and SAFF organised age-group tournaments has increased in frequency, pointing towards more engagement and progress of the game at those levels, it has also brought with it a rather unwanted side – the large number of officials,  and more worryingly, in some cases not the most appropriate ones – making trips.

The team that is travelling to Qatar includes a head of delegation, a team leader, a team manager, a team official, one head coach, two assistant coaches and a physiotherapist. While the presence of the coaches, manager and physio is understandable, the wisdom of including a team leader and a head of delegation and yet another team official for an age-group qualifying tournament is quite bewildering.

During the pre-departure press conference at the Bangladesh Football Federation yesterday, head of delegation Fazlur Rahman Babul, who is also the chairman of grounds committee, explained his inclusion by saying: “I had a long desire of going to Qatar. I had a chance to go there in 1984 but it didn't eventually happen. Qatar has great football infrastructure and there are Bangladeshis working in that sector. So I felt it would be good for our football to be there.”

BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag said that the decision to include the officials was taken by the development committee long ago, adding that Fazlur Rahman's interest for going to Qatar was taken into consideration while Iliyas Hossain was made team leader as he was involved with selection of the team from a very initial stage. However, the BFF spokesman could not come up with a satisfactory answer when asked about the role of the other team official.

As there is a limit to team contingency in such tournaments organized by the AFC, the inclusion of extra officials has seemingly also made it difficult for the more technical people to be included. The team is going without a goalkeeping coach. Jaan-e-Alam Nuri Rahel, who was with this team in last month's SAFF Championship, is not going with the side. The BFF officials claimed that the goalkeeping coach could not be part of the contingent due to visa complications.

The team will also be without any designated media officer. “We have contacted the Qatar FA and they will provide us with pictures while our officials will provide us with news over phone,” the BFF spokesman explained in this regard.

It has been learnt that the football federation had acquired a government order (GO) for 47 people for this tour. While the official list says 31 members are going to Qatar, it has been learnt that four others, who are not in the list, will accompany them.

It may be mentioned here that the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) bears the expenses of accommodation, food and others for the designated period of the tournament while respective federations bear the air ticket expenses.