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Much to gain from Blatter trip

Football

Sports Reporter
FIFA president Sepp Blatter will arrive in Dhaka today for his second trip to Bangladesh after a successful initial visit prior to the World Cup in 2006. But while Blatter's whisde-stop 21-hour long tour might have been arranged in haste, the president of football's governing body will bring with him glad tidings for Bangladeshi football.
Officially, the main mission of the FIFA supremo's tour to Bangladesh will be to launch the artificial pitch at the Balur Math adjacent to the BFF headquarters. The turf was acquired under the second phase of FIFA's famed Goal Project and will see fruition after being caught up in controversy overs its use foragoodnumberofyears.
But Blatter will also be announcing FIFA's wholehearted support and backing to the first full-fledged football academy in Bangladesh, the Sylhet BKSP, which is set to become opera-
tional from the middle of the year. And in this the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) president Kazi Salahuddin has managed to pull off quite the coup in convincing Blatter to extend FIFA's support, much as the association is currently doing across India under a number of projects.
Under the terms of the agreement which has not been fully spelled out yet, FIFA will provide full support to the academy for a period of two years. FIFA will appoint a scouting team who is set
to arrive on April 1 and also provide four coaches, one head coach, and one overall technical director for the academy which is expected to be fully functional from July. By that time the advance scouting team will have identified players under both the U16 and U18 batches and set the ball rolling on Bangladesh's first ever dedicated football academy.
This is excellent news for a country where football lags behind as a distant second sport after cricket, but where the interest in the beautiful game is manifold. In truth, with a population of 160 million people, most of whom maintain a more than passing interest in the game, football should be thriving.
But the reality is far bleaker and Blatter's tidings will serve to raise the game a few rungs from the doldrums within which it currently reigns.
It is often said that India is FIFA's next biggest destination; certainly the increase in projects all over our neighbour can be directly linked to their increased presence in regional tournaments. It is hoped that
FROM PAGE 16 as a domino effect, Bangladesh too can enjoy some of the many options FIFA has in their parcel.
The support for the academy is as good a start as any, and the BFF should ensure that they look extensively into the manifold ways that they can use FIFA's assistance to foster the growth of football in the country. Blatter's visit can provide a good launching pad to raise the profile of the game but harnessing it will be Kazi Salahuddin and BFF's main aim before and after the elections to be held in April. Today afternoon Sepp Blatter will sow the seeds toward the birth of an emerging football nation. Raising it well will be our job.