Manama, May 8: The Asian Football Confederation has elected Bangladesh Football
Federation Women’s Committee chief Mahfuza Akhter Kiron as one of its
representatives to FIFA Council, the global football regulator’s top body.
The 27th Congress of the Asian football body being held in Manama,
Bahrain saw Kiron, also on AFC executive body, win the election against
Australia’s Moya Dodd with 27 votes against 17.
A clear favourite and front-runner, Dodd had already was already served
on several FIFA bodies and also headed the AFC women’s committee besides
serving as number two of the regional body.
The AFC has seven positions on the FIFA council, three of which are
already taken and the other four were elected on Monday (May 8). One of those
positions was reserved women’s seat for AFC as each of the six regional
football body has one such position.
Kiron and Dodd, along with two others who withdrew earlier in the
morning, were chasing the reserved women’s seat on FIFA’s top decision making
body.
After winning the election, Kiron expressed her gratitude to the governing bodies for electing her. "I thank my Prime Minister and the Bangladesh government for giving me the opportunity to contest in the polls. I am honoured for the trust and responsibility the Asian countries have bestowed upon me."
Since there were three candidates for the three regular positions, they were
considered elected by acclamation and voting members were subsequently called
forth of cast their secret ballot.
Of the 45 eligible voters, 1 vote was considered invalid. Of the
remaining 44, Kiron bagged 27 against Dodd’s 17, to ride into the top FIFA body.
President of BFF, Kazi Salahuddin congratulated Kiron over the historic election win. "This is a landmark victory for Bangladesh football and I would like to thank all the Member Associations for their support. This is the first time Bangladesh got a position in the FIFA Council and we believe our football would benefit a lot."
FIFA President Gianni Infantino congratulated Kiron for her victory. "I am convinced that, as FIFA Council member, you will be able to bring your outstanding contribution to FIFA, but most importantly to the development of our beautiful game, which we both love so much."
Kiron promised to work her level best to solve the concurrent issues in Asia's women's football. "I will raise and solve the concurrent and long awaiting issues of women's football in Asia, especially in the South Asian region. I am grateful to the Bangladesh Football Federation for their all-out support and cooperation.
Currently, Kiron is renowned for her all round presence in the sports
scenario in Bangladesh and in international arena. She is currently a member of
the FIFA Member Associations Committee. In addition to that, she is an
Executive Committee Member of AFC and a member of the AFC Women’s Committee.
Formerly, she was the organizing committee member of the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup Football. Other than that, she had worked as the Deputy Chairman of the South Asian Football Federation Women’s Committee and was a member of the Athletics Committee of the Olympics Council of Asia (OCA).
Kiron ran for the FIFA with a pledge to standardize player development
to ensure similar levels of footballing performance across the countries,
develop collaboration through workshops and forums, increase funding through
better sponsorships of women’s football, introduce a different competition
structure, ensure education and development for referees and coaches and other
officials.
Kiron has also pledged to look into women’s wages which are consistently lower
than that of the men’s wages and also explore how to ensure that former players
are not forced out of the game for lack of career opportunities which would
eventually help women’s football retain its expertise and experience.
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