The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) Fact Finding Committee yesterday recommended stern punishment for national winger Zahid Hossain, terminating fitness coach MohammetYamali’s contract and cautioning the national head coach Lodewijk de Kruif.
After 10 days of investigation, the committee submitted their final report including findings and recommendations to the BFF president Kazi Salahuddin at the BFF House yesterday. The fact finding committee was formed on September 17 to investigate the reasons behind the debacle at the SAFF football championship in Nepal last month.
The committee recommended stern punishment against winger Zahid Hossain, who had been grossly negligent in his commitment to the team during the tournament and irresponsible on and off the pitch. Interestingly Zahiddidn’t appear before the fact-finding committee for an interview.
“His involvement was mysterious. We warned him in the past. But he didn’t rectify himself and continued his negligence and irresponsibility and remained undisciplined on and off the pitch. We don’t want see such players in the team,” said the convenor of the three-member committee Badal Roy who read out the findings and recommendations.
The committee also sought to caution skipper Mamunul Islam, Shakhawat Hossain Rony and Sohel for fitness issues. It was said that Rony hid his injury before the tournament.
The committee also recommended relieving Dutch trainer MohammetYamali of his duties for failing to perform his duties properly. Yamali was appointed in July for a four-month contract.
The committee also thinks the Dutch head coach Lodewijk de Kruif should also be more careful in future. “The coach was indifferent. We want to give him time but he should be more aware of this in future,” said Badal Roy.
The committee also recommended appointing the foreign coaches for long term and providing them with local two qualified people to assist them with information. The coaches should be acknowledged properly about the team’s target, limitations, environment and players qualities.
The committee believes that the players should be more motivated and committed to their job and country. The committee thought the goalkeeper was irresponsible and made mistakes in last two matches of the tournament. “The goalkeeping coach cannot avoid his responsibility. But since his appointment is a short term one, he is only cautioned and should be more careful in future.”
The other recommendations were that clubs training regimes should be made in conjunction withthe national team’s camp, improving premier league training facilities and making the league more competitive.They also recommended reducing the foreign players’ quota to 2 in the league.
The committee also suggested that a pool of 20-25 players could be brought under a monthly salary and insurance scheme. They also asked BFF to encourage the players from the grassroots level.
Since it was formed the fact finding committee interviewed 35 peoples and finished their work in a week and prepared their recommendations accordingly. The committee admitted most of the people they interviewed blamed the coaching staff and fitness of the players.