Despite insistence by the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) president Kazi Salahuddin to cut the number of devel-

opment coaches in half, the number of coaches is set to remain at 20, based on the suggestion of a review committee to the development committee yesterday.

The BFF president, during a meeting with development committee chairman Badal Roy on December 21, had urged him to reduce the number of coaches employed by the BFF and salaried from AFC fund from 20 to 10, as he felt that more than 10 coaches were not need for development purpose and that many of the coaches remained idle for most of the calendar year.

“1 think 10 coaches is enough for development purpose. I would like to see the number of local coaches reduced to 10 and by the money saved from reducing local coaches, we can hire a foreign coach for the academy," the BFF president told reporters yesterday.

While the development committee suggested hiring a foreign coach to guide local coaches and especially for the academy, it also decided to keep 19 of the current coaches, while relieving Mong Kru Marma for alleged negligence of his duties and included goalkeeping coach Mizanur Rahman Minar in the roster.

The review committee, while admitting that the some of the currently employed coaches have question marks regarding their quality and performance, proposed an evaluation of their performances every four months and to start a category system on the basis of performance.

The meeting also informed that the coach and manager of the BFF U-12 team, which took part in a football festival in Malaysia earlier this month, have been served show-cause notices after it was alleged that some of the players of the squad did not meet the required criteria.