Fifa president Gianni Infantino, during his short visit to Bangladesh Thursday, said Bangladesh has the chance to reach the top stage of women’s football and the scope of playing an important role in this aspect.
Bangladesh recorded some remarkable achievements in the women’s youth tournaments in the last few years, being the only country from south Asia to qualify for the AFC U-16 Championship, that too for two consecutive times.
The participants and tournaments in women’s football around the world have also increased notably over the past decade and Infantino urged the country’s football stakeholders to invest more to climb higher in women’s football.
“I’m really pushing all my friends here of the federation to invest in women’s football because the competition of women’s football has not yet strongly developed in some parts of the world. So in women’s football, there is still some possibility to enter at the very top spot worldwide. Bangladesh can play important role in this aspect,” said Swiss-Italian Infantino.
World football governing body boss Gianni Infantino has pledged that @FIFAcom would be much more active in Bangladesh football and south Asia with competitions at youth, club and national level during his Asia’s Goodwill Tour in Bangladesh Thursday.https://t.co/1UjTNB38Vg#BFF
— Dhaka Tribune Sports (@Sport_DT) October 17, 2019
The Fifa president was speaking to the media with the football of the 2019 Women’s World Cup placed in front of him.
He also talked about the increasing popularity of women’s football around the world.
He added, “The Women’s World Cup in summer was an incredible event. There were more than one million spectators in the stadiums and more than one billion viewers on TV. This is huge. Those who started watching women’s football first time realized that it is big and it is real sport and by far the biggest women’s sport in the world.”
Infantino also informed that world football’s governing body is working hard to increase the number of girls’ football tournaments along with the boys, and has decided to increase the participants from 24 to 32 in the next Women’s World Cup.
