Two and a half years have gone by since the formation of District Football Association (DFA) in order to keep government officials out of the 2008 Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) election, but most of the DFAs are failing to become functional due to financial constraints and conflict with the government-approved District Sports Associations (DSAs).
After being elected president of the BFF, Kazi Salahuddin declared that he would keep football on the field 10 months in Dhaka. He somewhat succeeded in the first year, but since has been made to sweat to keep his words due to a marathon professional football league in the second season that ended in 10 months.
The BFF boss has often been criticised for not looking after the sport at district levels. The high-ups of 57 DFAs during the token-money distribution in April urged the game's governing body to pay more attention to the district football to revive country's football. But the fact is that they have been struggling to hold leagues and tournaments round the year since BFF-approved bodies, the DFAs, are not allowed to receive any government allocation.
The effort of distributing Tk 50,000 to each of DFAs in April was a part of BFF's plan to get the bodies out of financial constraints and make them functional, but that plan has never realised.
Of 60 DFAs, only a few such as Chittagong, Meherpur, Sunamganj, Sathkira, Jessore have held leagues after getting financial assistance from the BFF while the rest have hardly taken any steps to get ball rolling on the field.
"We are now separate body, but we still have no ground and office because of lack of coordination between the DSA and DFA. We need ground and office rather than fund because we are often treated like extortionists when we approach the sponsors," said Khulna DFA general secretary Mostaquzzaman, adding that they had already completed the Third Division qualifying league and were going to hold the Second and First Divisions after the Eid.
Madaripur DFA could still not hold any competitions since its journey.
"No sponsors showed interest in sponsoring the competitions without DSA and we are really facing problem to convince them," said general secretary Golam Kabir, who however assured of starting the First Division league in the latter part of this month.
Barisal DFA president Alamgir Khan claimed that they could not do anything in the last two and a half years because of poor relation with the then DSA president (Barisal DC), but are now hopeful with the new DSA president.
Rajbari DFA general secretary Shahajan Mia informed that they have been waiting for BFF's response after submitting a budget of Tk 3 lakhs.
Rajshahi DFA general secretary Nurul Haque slammed the BFF for not revealing its calendar.
"BFF should first announce its calendar, then we can follow that to deck up our schedules because we face problem of running the leagues once it clashes with the Dhaka schedules," said Haque adding that they have already completed the Second Division league after getting Tk 50,000 allocation from the BFF.
However, Satkhira DFA has been unique as they resumed the First Division after a break of 15 years and completed without any financial assistance from the BFF and are now targeting to hold Second and Third Division leagues after the Eid break.
"Had we waited for the BFF, we could not have completed it," said general secretary Imadul Haque.
It has been learnt that BFF is going to provide financial assistance to the DFAs after getting assurance from Bashundhara Group, with whom the game's governing body has a three-year deal worth Tk 4.5 crore.
Source: thedailystar.net
