The 18 senior women footballers of the Bangladesh national team, who have been boycotting head coach Peter Butler's training camp since January 29, will return to training following the UAE tour, informed Bangladesh Football Federation's women's wing chairman Mahfuza Akter Kiron.

Bangladesh women footballers strike over coach's behavior, face public backlash.

Bangladesh Women’s Football team, Rupana Chakma hails from the remote village of Bhuiyodam in the secluded Ghilachari hills of Naniarchar upazila, Rangamati. Born as a posthumous child, she did not have the opportunity to see her father, Gatha Moni Chakma. The distraught Kalosona Chakma began her struggles to earn a decent living for her four children. Kalosona would work inhumane hours as a day labourer in agricultural fields to manage two meals a day for the family. Despite the abject poverty, Rupana Chakma nurtured a knack for sports, and playing football has been in her dreams ever since childhood.

What could be the psyche behind this ugly practice of stealing the limelight despite having no intellectual, technical, moral or effective input in any of the 23 goals that our girls scored in Kathmandu?

Our national women’s football team’s victory surely gives us all, especially the women, an extraordinary level of confidence.

To be seen, to simply exist and take up space – on sporting fields, in courts of justice, on buses and in public office – shouldn’t have to be a revolutionary act.

There comes a time, regardless of how rare it might be, when you genuinely feel happy to see others succeed. The existence of such happiness becomes much more apparent when it comes to underdogs achieving something despite everyone’s minuscule expectations for them. Such was the case for the Bangladesh Women's football team winning the SAFF Women Championship 2022 title.

Member of Bangladesh's SAFF Women's Championship-winning team, Krishna Rani Sarkar, was delighted to have returned home on Wednesday after their successful SAFF campaign.

Bangladesh women footballers, who clinched their maiden SAFF Women’s Championship title by beating hosts Nepal in the tournament’s final in Kathmandu last Monday, returned to the country on Wednesday afternoon.

On what was a regular afternoon, a little girl growing up in a poverty-stricken background only insisted on playing her favourite game of football. Her mother, though, under continuous pressure from the surrounding community, took a knife and resorted to puncturing her favourite toy, a football in this case, right in front of those innocent, teary eyes.

Before emerging as champions of the just-concluded 2022 SAFF Women's Championship, the women in red and green had played a final once before – during the regional competition's 2016 edition. But as the in-form Sabina Khatun, Sanjida Akhtar, Maria Manda and company prepared to encounter hosts Nepal, the Bangladesh head coach Golam Rabbani Choton deemed his charges as favourites -- not based on the track records against the four-time champions but on their current form.

Bangladesh will be looking to build on their momentum in the SAFF Women's Championship when the girls in red and green take on five-time champions India in the two sides' third and final match of the group stage at the Dasharath Rangasala stadium in Kathmandu, Nepal at 5:45 pm BST on Tuesday.

The Daily Star: How would you describe the journey of the current batch of girls?

The Daily Star (DS): 6-0 in the first match against Malaysia and then a goalless draw in the next one despite dominating them. What was the realisation after the last match?

The beautiful game has been the most popular sport on the planet for over a century, but although the field has been dominated by men for most of its history, times have begun to change in the last few decades.

The Bangamata U-19 Women's International Gold Cup 2019 tournament is set to kick off on April 22, upholding the ideals of Bangamata Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib.

The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) has decided to introduce the women's football league towards the end of this year in a bid to make women's football more competitive for the international stage as well as give the women footballers a source of income.

Two female Colombian footballers, Katerin Fabiola Castro Munoz and Jessica Hurtado, cannot wait to meet the Bangladeshi footballers after coming here to inspire the home side as well as to promote the Bangamata U-19 Women's International Gold Cup.

Bangladesh made it to the AFC U-16 Women's Championship finals by notching a hard-fought 1-0 win over hosts Myanmar in a Group B encounter of Qualification Round-2 at the Mandala Thiri Stadium yesterday.