The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) has been in the news for several times in the past few years. Most of it is due to financial reasons. FIFA banned the former general secretary of BFF and three other staff members for financial issues. Former senior vice-president Abdus Salam Murshedi also faced punishment for failing to properly monitor expenses as per FIFA fund guidelines as chairman of the finance committee. Therefore, the new BFF president Tabith Awal is a little extra cautious about finances.
Elections were held in the BFF on October 26. Later, the chairmen of several standing committees were nominated in the first executive committee meeting on November 9. Where Federation President Tabith Awal kept the responsibility of the Finance Committee as well as the National Party Committee with himself. Three and a half months after becoming chairman, he held the first meeting of the Finance Committee the day before yesterday (Wednesday).
No decision on financial planning and direction was made in the first meeting. When the BFF Finance Committee wanted to know the income and expenditure issues of the federation in a specific and in-depth manner, the finance staff could not present it in that way. A person present at the committee meeting, who did not want to be named, said, “The budget is very luxurious, there is no specific income sector there, but the amount of expenditure has been shown excessively. There are inconsistencies and shortcomings in some other matters. The Finance Department has been instructed to complete this before the next meeting. After that, we will be able to make a financial roadmap.”
Kazi Salahuddin and his previous committee have left a huge debt burden on the new BFF committee. The finance department is not ready to list which of those debts are urgent or quickly repayable. The finance committee has asked the department to specifically mention what percentage of income is spent on which sector. Questions were also raised about the expenditure sector in the meeting. The utility bill shown per month is 9 lakh taka. Especially the electricity bill is more than 5 lakh per month. The rooms of the president, senior vice-president and vice-presidents are closed most days of the month. There was a discussion about why there are so many electricity bills in the 6-7 rooms of the general secretary and staff, the conference room and the women’s team camp on the fourth floor.
In addition to the BFF building, there are a few staff in the Metropolitan League Committee office at the National Stadium. They are involved in organizing the first-third division league. A senior staff member of that office, Kashem, was honored by the BFF at the AGM in June last year. He retired on December 31. Even after retiring, the accounts of the league committee are incomplete. The federation has not yet been able to take an account from him. Another staff member of the league committee signed a letter stating that he had ‘declared incompetence’ to give an account. As a result, the federation’s finance department has withheld the salary of that staff member for three months. Questions have also been raised about withholding the salary of one person for another and not resolving the problem before granting retirement.
Former BFF chief financial officer Abu Hossain has been banned from FIFA. He has been replaced by Sarfaraz. Despite his young age, he receives more than three lakh taka per month from BFF. Although he has several degrees in accounts, many in the executive committee believe that he is not able to adapt properly to football. The budget for the AGM was not passed in the last executive committee meeting of Kazi Salahuddin. Because the chief financial officer did not send it to Finance Committee Chairman Imrul Hasan first. In the end, although the budget was raised at the AGM, the councilors did not pass it. According to various sources, the current Finance Committee Chairman Tabith Awal is not satisfied with the activities of the chief financial officer so far.
The administrative chief of BFF is the general secretary. Although the chief finance officer is subordinate to him, according to the Football Federation, the general secretary is on his knees. For this, the general secretary, along with the finance officer, was also subjected to harsh interrogation in the finance committee meeting.
The chairman of the finance committee is BFF president Tabith Awal. The deputy chairman is senior vice-president Imrul Hasan. Three vice-presidents Naser Shahriar Zahedi, Fahad Karim and Sabbir Aref are the other three members of the committee. Another vice-president, Wahid Uddin Chowdhury, is not in the finance committee as he is the chairman of the Happy Internal Audit Committee. Four other people were present in the first meeting except Imrul Hasan. Many blame the staff for neglecting their work as they did not come to the meeting despite their business and other commitments during Ramadan.