Dhaka, February 25: Being a developing country, it is always challenging to make the best use of resources especially when it comes to setting up an economic model and implementing it. That is true for Bangladesh Football Federation too.

However, the federation has already approved long term development plans and one of the prime focuses of the plan is optimum allocation of resources. Towards that end, the federation is following the economic models that adopted by football giants like Germany, Belgium, Korea, China and Japan. Some of the major aspects of the economic model are as follows:

- Investment and technical plan for Phase 1, 2 and 3

- Player development camps and activities

- Infrastructure to ensure various competitions are held properly

- Appropriate grassroots and youth structure

When Salahuddin took over the helm of Bangladesh’s football there was no organised domestic league or professional league structure, federation structure was disorganised and most importantly, there was no saleable product.

The former football great and BFF president, Kazi Salahuddin explained at a conference in FIFA house, “The key to achieving progress lies in simple economics.”

He said, “We need funds to develop our sport – it’s as straightforward as that. But we also have to increase awareness, so that we can attract sponsors.”

In 2008 Bangladesh Football Federation secured a sponsorship of Tk 8 crore with which BFF decided to begin implementation of its vision to drive development of the game at all levels. The decision was proven right as BFF gained more than Tk 87 crore from sponsorships over the last eight years. During this period the average annual salary of players witnessed a significant growth as it increase to Tk 30-50 lakhs from Tk 5-10 lakhs.

BFF is looking to further strengthen its ties with FIFA and AFC. Besides that, stronger ties with external investors, commercial partners and the private sector will be a priority to make the federation commercially stronger.

BFF will emphasise on developing internal and external policies and protocols, effective work ethics practices and introducing efficient operations to increase its business capability.

As part of future development, BFF will estimate the project budgets by 2017, which will be followed by short time financial analysis from 2018 to 2020. After that, the midterm financial analysis will be conducted from 2020 to 2022. A long term financial analysis will be conducted for projects between 2022 to 2030.

The federation is actually looking forward to proper implementation of the economic model which will help secure its motto of “One Game, One Vision, One Dream”.