‘No shortage of effort from us’

Pulling the national women's team out of Paris Olympic qualifiers has shocked the country's football supporters, especially after financial constraints was cited as the reason in a period when the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) staged three international women's age-group tournaments and two FIFA friendlies for the senior men's team on the back of expensive training camp abroad.

Another perspective of not sending the women's football team in Myanmar to play the qualifiers has surfaced: it involves the BFF attempting to make the government perceive its deep financial crisis in the aftermath of the finance ministry's denial to accept BFF's five-year football development proposal, worth Tk 450 crore. The perception initially took form a few days back when BFF president Kazi Salahuddin told the media that financial crisis might force them to shun activities of the Elite Football Academy.

At present, what the BFF do with funds from FIFA, AFC and sponsors has also come under scrutiny. FIFA and AFC together provide more than US dollar 1.5 million per year apart from providing other costs for the national football team's under FIFA Forward programme. Moreover, sponsors in Dhaka Bank and Bashundhara Group together provide the BFF Tk 2.8 crore per year.

BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag said, "Yes, we are getting money from FIFA, AFC and sponsors, but there are a lot of expenditures to run football. We also wanted to spend some money behind the women's team under FIFA's national team's assistant but they suggested not doing it, citing most of the time of this year is still left."

Shohag informed that the board has received US dollar 125 thousand from FIFA and AFC till May as they need nearly Tk 30 crore per year to run all activities.

"Look, we had to host three international women's age-group tournaments and arrange two FIFA friendly matches this year and there was also a lot of expense behind it," said Shohag.

Soon after the SAFF Women's Championship triumph, the BFF had promised to arrange the matches against strong sides. Since then, the national women's team players could only play Bangladesh Women's League, which was also trimmed to a one-leg competition instead of a two-leg league, and now they are deprived of assessing their skills against superior opponents.

The BFF general secretary added, "However, there was no shortage of effort from us to send the women's team to Myanmar but we could not manage the required money of approximately Tk 80-90 lakh in three to four weeks after being denied the opportunity to host Bangladesh's Group. If we were awarded as the host nation, then there was almost no expenditure behind the team playing at home," said Shohag, who however did not answer whether they had any alternative plan once they lost the bid to host Olympic qualifiers.

According to the BFF accounts, the game's governing body spends approximately Tk 25 to 30 lakh per month to run the different women's teams camp at BFF dormitory, while approximately Tk 1.5 crore was spent behind the national men's team preparation as well as arranging two FIFA friendlies against Seychelles last month.