Why was it that Kazi Mohammad Salahuddin, Bangladesh's first sporting icon, had decided to run for Bangladesh Football Federation president in the first place, and what was it that he wanted to achieve? The BFF president answers them and talks about a lot more in a candid interview. Here are the excerpts:
What were your main goals when you became the BFF president for the first time?
Of course, I will tell you a story. I was visiting Malaysia on some business in 2007. At the Kuala Lumpur airport, a cleaner approached me and greeted me. He said, “Salahuddin bhai, I was a football player. I used to play for Wari.” I was absolutely shocked and surprised. How could that be? This fellow used to play for a first division club in Dhaka and now he is reduced to cleaning public toilets. He said, “Yes well, since there are no leagues, I don't have an earning. So, I took the job of a sweeper and came to Malaysia.”
That's the time I decided to run in the election. I thought let me see if I can get in and get the tournaments going again. And that was basically my goal. At that time, the domestic leagues in Dhaka were all but dead. They had become very irregular. Players had put the federation under lock and key in protest, because there were no regular leagues. The players were going through such hardship that they would leave the game and seek jobs elsewhere.
Today's players, with just a few years in the leagues are much better off. You will find they have cars and healthy bank balance. The other thing that was not happening in the absence of regular leagues and tournaments was development of league venues, not to mention the overall quality of the sport. So, when I became the president, my first priority was that I would keep the ball rolling in the field. And since then, we have not missed a single league.
I had come with the ambition to keep the ball rolling and I have done that.
What about the standard of the game, why can you not lift that?
See, organizing tournaments is the federation's responsibility. But the national team's performance is quite another matter. It is the players, coaches and the technical crew that make up the team. They play and they are the ones responsible for their performance. The federation gets the national squad together for just a week or so. By the time we get things rounded up, there is no time left for practice really. So, the quality of players depends on the training they get at their clubs. The standard of club football effectively decides the standard of the national team.
If you go back to your playing days and compare that to today's scenario, what do you find to be the major differences in culture?
There is a world of difference. We used to be amateur footballers mostly. Today it has become fully professional. Players receive 10 times the salary. Club licencing is mandatory. The standard has also developed a lot. That makes today's competition naturally much harder than in the past. I can tell you for a fact that today's players get more international matches in four years than what I had in 13 years during my time with the national team. No matter what you say, that makes a difference. Any match with a major team would result in an embarrassing seven or eight goals to nil in our time. Today it is more like two or three goals. It would appear that we had better football but that was only because people would go to watch the matches. The crowds were always there at the stadium.
