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Quality foreigners dominate BPL transfer window

Sports Reporter
Country's top-flight football, over the last decade, witnessed —physically imposing African footballers who often lacked quality, but the scenario is rapidly changing in the Bangladesh Premier League since the last season with the presence of quality foreign players in all the clubs.
Though the giants used to hire comparatively skilled African footballers, the mid-and-lower-table sides used to rely on physically imposing African players without thinking of their quality, with low payment being one of the major reasons to sign them in previous years.
However, the scenario is changing rapidly, especially after the game's local governing body made it a must to include at least one player in each side under Asian quota.
The recent seven-week transfer window closed on November 20 where some 66 foreign players from 24 countries were signed up by the participating 13 clubs. Of those foreign recruits, 36 are new singings who came to Bangladesh for the first time.
Like the previous editions, African players still dominated the transfer market, with 29 players from the continent - Nigeria (13), Gambia (5), Cameroon (3), Mali (2), Guinea (2), Egypt (2), Rwanda (1) and Sierra Leone (1). However, there is a big contingent of 20 Asian players — Uzbekistan (7), Kyrgyzstan (5), Japan (3), Tajikistan (3), Lebanon (1), East Timor (1) this time around.
Apart from Asia and Africa, there are also players from Montenegro, Bulgaria, Brazil, Argentina, USA, Colombia, Haiti, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast and Australia.
Maruful Haque, one of the top coaches of the country, believes modem technology and an open transfer market are helping club officials and coaching staff to choose quality players.
"The clubs can nowadays search for quality players in the open market and easily get video footages of 20 quality footballers within an hour through agents. That's why players from other continents, with good academic background, are being preferred over African players and,” Chattogram Abahani coach Marful said.
"Compared to the previous
years, better quality foreign players are coming into the Bangladesh Premier League and they have been contributing to change the standard of Bangladesh football because they are technically and tactically superior to the physical ones. The local players are also learning from them, especially their technique," Maruful added.
Sheikh Russel coach Saiful Bari Titu believes the Bangladesh Premier League is getting more competitive due to the presence of quality foreign players.
"The last league was one of the most competitive one I have seen and I think the upcoming season will be even more competitive as every team is trying to bring quality foreign players," said Titu, who believes the mandatory norm of having Asian players raised the bar of the league.
"Clubs have tried to rope in national players from Asian nations, especially from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan who are better than Bangladeshi players. Besides, clubs have also shown tendency to rope in European and South American players because they are easy to deal with compared to African players," said Titu.