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Lack of interest and competition stunting growth of women’s league
The stats pretty much sum up the story of the league underlining Kings’ absolute domination. Kings won all 37 league matches they played in the last three editions and scored a whopping 442 goals, averaging 11.94 goals per match.
ANISUR RAHMAN
The success of women's football across different age-groups had demanded the re-introduction of the women's football league in a bid to provide female footballers with a foundation for them to stay in football and hone their skills for international competitions.
After two seasons in 2011-12 and 2012-13, Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) brought back the league in 2019-20 and has run two editions since then but has struggled to bring quality to the field due to a lack of interest from well-known professional clubs.
The first two editions of the league saw top-flight outfits like Sheikh Jamal, Mohammedan, Abahani, Brothers Union, Arambagh, Dhaka Wanderers, and Wari Club participate which helped produce a few competitive matches but the overall standard was not up to the mark.
Since then, however, the performances of female footballers have significantly improved, especially at international level and the country’s football fans have begun to rally behind the women's team following their SAFF Championship triumph in 2022.
But when it comes to providing structure through the women's league, clubs still show a lack of interest, with the aforementioned clubs opting to sit out in the last three seasons.
Quite naturally, the women’s league has now turned into a one-horse race, with the Bashundhara Kings roping in almost all national team players forming a team that has been largely unchallenged as they won a hattrick of league titles, while the other teams have largely been there to make up the numbers.
The stats pretty much sum up the story of the league underlining Kings' absolute domination. Kings won all 37 league matches they played in the last three editions and scored a whopping 442 goals, averaging 11.94 goals per match.
This further intensifies the argument for having Bangladesh Premier League clubs participate in the league which could make things more competitive.
Kings, though, deserve appreciation as they made room for the national team players offering payments that ranged from Tk 3 lakhs to Tk 8 lakhs this season, considerably higher compared to some of the other clubs like Ataur Rahman Bhuiyan College and Uttara FC that paid around Tk 50,000 to Tk 1.5 lakhs to most of their players.
It has also been learnt that a couple of teams fielded players without making any payments.
BFF had previously struggled to convince clubs to enter the women’s league but this time around, they completed the fifth edition with 12 teams – the highest ever and four more than the previous edition. The league featured nearly 250 players from across the country.
Despite the lack of competitiveness, national team coach Golam Rabbani Choton felt there was some improvement in the league, especially in terms of competition between the table toppers and the rest.
“I think the league has improved a bit compared to the previous editions because participating teams tried to play competitive football following some organised training,” Choton told The Daily Star.
“Though the performances of the small teams were not quite reflected in the scorelines, they improved match by match," he added.
Around 64 national players from the senior national team and different age-group teams played in the league.
“For the first time, I picked four promising players for the U-17 and U-20 teams from the league and this means the league has gradually improved. Kings played the only competitive match against ARB College but they won the remaining matches without much effort," said Choton.
Kings' head coach Syed Golam Jilani, who coached the national side in 2013, also admitted that the only challenge his side faces was from the ARB College, which featured players from U-20 and U-17 national teams.
“To be honest, the last match (between Kings and ARB College) was the only competitive match in the entire league,” Jilani said.
“When I worked with women’s football in 2013, there was nothing to mention as most of the players could not shoot the ball properly but now there were good players in other teams as well. They can play football; they understand their positions; they understand how to defend but they are not mature enough for competitive matches,” said the AFC A-licensed coach.