The sports of football

Introduction of Bangladesh football

Football is popular in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is currently ranked 150th in the FIFA ranking. Bangladesh became the 2003 South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) champion. SAFF includes Southern Asian countries and other countries from Asia.

The Bangladesh national football team is controlled by the national governing body, the Bangladesh Football Federation, which is a member of the AFC. The side has yet to qualify for a FIFA World Cup tournament. They were eliminated in the first round of their only Asian Cup appearance to date in 1980. As is the case elsewhere on the subcontinent, the national football team stands somewhat in the shadow of the country's Test cricket team. The team was founded in 1972, and joined FIFA in 1974.

Apart from wins over Indonesia and Thailand in their first ever World Cup qualification in 1986, Bangladesh has struggled to impose itself. At the regional level, they have also remained in the second echelon while in Asia, the team is constantly trying to avoid being the wooden spoon of their group.

Football in Bangladesh has a huge following which was exemplified when the national team made history in their victory at the South Asian Football Federation Cup in 2003. The South Asia side won the final via penalties over Maldives before 50,000 home supporters.

Kazi Salahuddin is Bangladesh's most famous footballer, having played professional football in Hong Kong, the first Bangldeshi player to ever do so.

Another famous player is Chingla Mong Chowdhury Murruy. He is a renowned soccer personality in Bangladesh. He used to play before the liberation war. He coached BRTC, was an assistant coach for BKSP. He also received his national award in football. He fought in the Liberation War in 1971 for his country.

Football in Bangladesh

Despite the dominance of Cricket as a national pastime, football is a very popular sport in Bangladesh, although it is under neglect from both the government and authorities including the country’s football federation Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF).

Compared to the past, the standard of Bangladeshi football has degraded due to mismanagement, lack of support and poor investment. An interest in cricket resulting from the nation’s success in test cricket and participation in the World Cup overshadowed the past fame in the nation’s football. But however this did not affect football’s popularity: more football tournaments are organized in and outside Dhaka than of any other sports and football fever grips the nation during every FIFA World Cup. Federation officials and experts are still hopeful about the development of football in the country in the next ten years despite financial obstacles and lack of professionalism.

History

History tells us why football is still popular in the country. During the liberation war in 1971, football was the way to create international awareness of the war of independence: the establishment of the Swadhin Bangla Football Team which played 16 matches in India and was officially received by the BFF in 2009.

The time before the 90s saw national soccer fever in league football specifically in the Dhaka League, which possessed club teams famous home and abroad. League football was popular even before independence, from the 1940s to 1960s under Pakistan.There were quite a number of premier football clubs in Dhaka, in the 40s, most prominent among them were Dhaka Wanderers, Victoria SC, Wari Club, Mohammedan SC, EP Gymkhana, Railways, and Fire service. Match between East Pakistan Governors XI vs. West Bengal XI was held at Dhaka in the late forties. The first Dhaka League was won by Bangladeshi Victoria SC in 1948, three years prior to the Mother Language Movement when still under Pakistani rule. Football was played both in the domestic leagues and abroad. Bangladeshi clubs such as BKSP and Bangladesh Red played with success in international football tournaments like Aga Khan Gold Cup, President Gold Cup, Dana Cup and Gothia Cup. BKSP won the later two in 1990 while Bangladesh Red were runners-up in the first President Gold Cup in 1981 and won it in 1989. Except that, Bangladeshi clubs bagged three more titles abroad: Quaid-E-Azam Trophy of Pakistan in 1985, Four-nation invitational tournament of Myanmar in 1995 and Jigme Dorji Wangchuk Memorial Football of Bhutan in 2003.

Bangladesh’s best player of all times is Kazi Salahuddin, who played professional football in Hong Kong in 1979 and is now president of the BFF.

After BFF’s establishment in 1972 the national team played their first international against Thailand in the 1973 Merdeka tournament in Malaysia. After its membership with FIFA in 1974 and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), the national team participated in the 1980 AFC Asian Cup finals and the 1986 FIFA World Cup qualifiers. But the nation’s best results came at South Asian level where it won the SAFF Championship once and were gold medalists in South Asian Games twice.

Recent ten years saw a series of changes in national head coaches and many famous coaches like the Austrian György Kottán and German Otto Pfister, who coached Ivory Coast to their first FIFA World Cup finals in 2006. Not giving enough time to coaches might be one the reasons behind the country’s degrading football.

However in 2006 Bangladesh reached the quarterfinals of AFC Challenge Cup under Argentine coach Andres Cruciani and in 2010 Bangladesh won the 11th South Asian Games on home soil under the Serbian Zoran Djordjevic, who left in February the same year.

The Federation

The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) was established on 15 July 1972 and has been a member of the FIFA since 1974 and of AFC in 1973. The federation is responsible for organising all club championships and the professional league. It is currently working with AFC’s Vision Asia programme to improve the domestic football infrastructure.The BFF is presided by Kazi Salahuddin since April 2008.

Women's Football

In a country whose population is predominantly Muslim and there is some resistance towards women’s football. The women’s game has struggled to gain a foothold in Bangladesh in the past and many tournaments dedicated to women have failed. Women's football finally saw light in Bangladesh when the first ever women's football tournament was staged under the Vision Asia programme in November 2007. Eight teams especially from different district's all over the country took part in the tournament and made it a success amidst security threats.

In October 2008, first women's school football tournament was held under the Vision Bangladesh programme with BFF hopeful of continuing and developing the women's game in the country.

Women's football was included in the South Asian Games 2010 hosted in Dhaka while the first Women's SAFF Championship is to be held in December in the country. Bangladesh had their first team in the AFC U-19 Women's Championship qualifiers with India, Jordan and Iran in their group.