The federation also decided to pay up on the full participation fees due to BPL football clubs at a meeting of the BFF Professional Football League Committee in Motijheel on July 13.
The decision came after a strong ultimatum from the Bangladesh Football Clubs Association (BFCA), a platform of the country’s football clubs, which threatened to call an extraordinary general meeting, if the BFF executive committee failed to publish audit reports and hold an annual general meeting (AGM) soon.
On July 8, the President of BFCA and also Chairman of SAIF Sporting Club Tarafder Md Ruhul Amin called on the BFF to arrange its much-awaited AGM and publish financial audit report within 2 weeks at a BFCA coordination meeting at Hotel Purbani International Ltd.
The representatives of 46 clubs and former national footballers were also present in the BFCA’s coordination meeting and discussed the ‘present poor state’ of football in Bangladesh.
The association for clubs also made several demands for investigations against violation of rules of BPL, Bangladesh Championship League (BCL) and other leagues, as well as into match fixing and referees.
The meeting also took the decision not to take part in the upcoming players’ transfers for BCL and BPL until the promised participation money is paid to respective clubs.
Later, the General Secretary of BFCA and President of Arambagh KS AKM Mominul Hoque Sayeed added his club will not take part in the next transfer window in August, if the transfer window is not revised after discussing with the clubs.
“BPL is still going on and the early announcement of players’ transfer without taking consent of the clubs put the premier league clubs into trouble with the players making deals with other clubs silently and it has a big impact on the performance in the ongoing league,” Sayeed said.
However, BFF finally decided to freeze the players’ transfer dates for the upcoming season of Bangladesh Premier League and to pay Tk 20 Lac as participation fee to each BPL club.
After the BFF’s decision, Joint Secretary of BFCA Mazharul Islam Tuhin said that they are happy with the decision but they are waiting for the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and financial audit report.
“We are happy that the federation decided to freeze the players’ transfer dates for the upcoming season of Bangladesh Premier League. But our prime demands were Annual General Meeting (AGM) and financial audit report,” he said.
Asked about their next step, the joint secretary said, “We are going to hold a meeting soon. After the meeting we will send separate notices to BFF to publish audit report and to arrange AGM with 2-week ultimatum.”
“As per the BFF constitution, if two-thirds of the councillors want AGM, then federation is obliged to arrange it. We also have demanded to pay promised participation fee Tk 5 lac to each Bangladesh Championship League (BCL) club. The present executive committee of BFF has not said anything yet. We will also take a step in this regard,” said Tuhin, also general secretary of Victoria Sporting Club, one of the BCL Clubs.
The election of Bangladesh Football Federation executive committee is scheduled for April 2020.
It is notable that the Bangladesh Football Club Association (BFCA), formed on January 22 this year, has come into the spotlight with several sensational demands and serious accusations against present executive committee of BFF.
BFCA is expected to hold a grand conference of all the country’s football organisers with representatives of BFCA and Bangladesh District & Divisional Football Association in October-November this year.
It seems the battle between the two bickering groups -- BFCA and Executive committee of BFF -- will inflame the next BFF elections, due to be held next April.