National school football in June?

Having got the assurance of fund under the FIFA Forward Programme, the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) is now pondering whether to hold the National School Football Championship in June after the completion of the first-term exams at school level.

The championship was supposed to get underway from February 1 as per BFF's much-hyped-four-year calendar, but the game's governing body is struggling to roll it out on the field due to financial constraints. It seems, however, that the hurdles have been overcome after the FIFA development committee last week sanctioned 112,500 dollars [approximately Tk 90 lakh] for the school championship.

The championship was held once previously, that too partially, in 2013.

“The BFF president gave me the go-ahead to arrange the school championship and we, the school tournament committee, will soon sit for a meeting to fix everything. However, I have a plan to start the championship in June after the first-term exams of schools,” said Bijon Barua, chairman of the school tournament committee.

“With the budget of FIFA fund, we can hold the school tournament with the participation of one school from each of the 64 districts,” Bijon said. “We will include more schools from the upazila level, if Islami Bank accepts our proposal. We are eagerly waiting for a positive response from them.”

The bank had provided Tk5 crore to hold the 2012 national school championship and promised to provide Tk3 crore for the 2013 championship.