Anisur Rahman

A group of brilliant young footballers put Bangladesh prominently on the map of age-level women’s football, especially in South Asia, by clinching the first-ever AFC U-14 Girls’ Regional Championship in December 2015.

The newly elected Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) committee may not reflect the expectations of the general football fans, but the much talked-about polls produced nine new faces who are all set to work along long-serving BFF organisers, including four-time President Kazi Salahuddin for the next four years.

The annual general meeting is a forum where delegates capitalise on the opportunity to reflect on the obstacles and achievements of the past year, and to voice their opinions on decisions that will affect the direction of the sport.

As the country is gradually stirring back to life amid the threat of the coronavirus, the country’s sports fraternity too seems to be preparing to wake up.

Social distancing and Covid-19 transmission are evidently not high on the list of concerns. For these workers, at an iron foundry in Shyampur, the most pressing issue in life is earning the basic living that would allow them to put food on the table back home.

Lack of professionalism in both the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) and the clubs, combined with the dysfunction in the Football Players’ Welfare Association (FPWA) has seemingly paved the way to the unpleasant decision of big pay cuts of footballers in the upcoming season, expected to start in December.

The Daily Star (DS): You are contesting for the president’s post of Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) for a fourth successive term. What has prompted you to run again?

“Football is now a platform for fake organisers to draw cheap publicity,” Manzoor Hossain Malu lamented.

Despite little engagement at national and international stage last year and lower division competitions and youth development remaining irregular, the Bangladesh Football Federation’s administrative expenditure increased 30 percent in the last fiscal.

Asked why their relationship had suddenly deteriorated after running the federation in tandem for nearly six years, Nazimuddin and Intekhabul blamed each other.

Football in the country was set to emerge from the four-and-a-half-month coronavirus-induced slumber last week as national players joined the training camp for the Joint Qualifiers for World Cup and Asian Cup, but FIFA and AFC’s decision on Wednesday to postpone the October-November window has plunged the sport into uncertainty once more.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a persistent fear has been that of false negatives -- cases of those infected with the transmissible virus testing negative and being allowed to carry on with their regular lives, risking further infection.

The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) will allow its member associations to hold the upcoming Joint Qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup and 2023 Asian Cup in the presence of full spectators, limited spectators or without spectators amid the coronavirus pandemic.

After the Bangladesh Hockey Federation (BHF) elections in April 2019, there were high hopes that the new leadership would get the Premier Hockey League (PHL) back on track but those fond hopes have proved to be unfounded so far, and the coronavirus pandemic has plunged the league into further uncertainty.

Four new players have secured places in the preliminary squad of the Bangladesh national football team ahead of the Joint Qualifiers of Qatar World Cup and China Asian Cup, and their journeys to drawing the attention of head coach Jamie Day tell varied stories of ascension to the coveted level.

Footballers have been confined to their respective homes for four months since the coronavirus outbreak in mid-March and players, especially those in the national team, have been adhering strictly to the training schedule set by national team coach Jamie Day following the announcement of the resumption of joint qualifiers for 2022 World Cup and 2023 Asian Cup.

While the ongoing 2020 AFC Cup is yet to resume after being suspended in March in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the process of participating in the 2021 edition has already started with the Bangladesh Football Federation asking interest clubs of the Bangladesh Premier League to submit their documents by August 5.

While athletes from the majority of disciplines are eagerly waiting for the situation to improve so they can get back to formal training, weightlifters across the country are paving the way as they returned to full-fledged training despite the increasing number of COVID-19 cases.

The resumption of the national football team’s activities is gradually becoming a reality as the medical committee of the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) yesterday completed their health guidelines in light of FIFA guidelines to resume football activities ahead of October’s World Cup Qualifiers.

Promising sprinter Al Naim Sheikh has turned into a day labourer, working on agricultural fields in Khulna as his bread and butter has been snatched away by the coronavirus pandemic.