Future of Bangladesh football bright: Infantino

GBnews24desk//

FIFA president Gianni Infantino said the future of Bangladesh football is bright and insisted that it would remain number one sport of the country.

He also vowed that the football governing body would be much more active in Bangladesh football in the coming days.

“I thought I came to a country which knows something about football but not really into football because of the other sports that are part of the local culture. But what I find out is that, it’s actually a country that is not only playing football, are not only passionate about football but it is actually living football. Living football is the new slogan of FIFA,” Infantino said in his prepared statement during a press-conference at a city hotel.

The FIFA boss arrived in the capital early in the morning and had a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for around an hour at the PM’s Office after which he visited the BFF House at noon to have a discussion with BFF president Kazi Salahuddin. “We discussed about the future development of football in this country and in this region. With the

passion that I can see here, I think the future is bright. We will, as FIFA, be much more actively involved in activities in Bangladesh and south Asia. We will come up with ideas, competitions for youths, for boys and girls, for men’s and women’s, for clubs and the national team,” he vowed.

“We will bring FIFA much closer with football in this part of the world because Bangladesh has 170m people living in this country and I don’t know how many millions abroad. You should be rightly proud for your country which has great culture, history and foods,” added the 49-year old FIFA boss.

“I’m hopeful and confident of what we can do. What we can do is mainly bring football to the children, bring it to the schools, clubs, bring it to the boys, girls and look at the smiles when they touch the ball when they play. Hope and smile – that’s what we can do and what we are working on,” said the Swiss-Italian, who took over the reins of world football in 2016.

Infantino was accompanied by FIFA deputy secretary general Matthias Grafstrom, chief of communications Onofre Costa, director of members associations of Asia and Oceania Sanjeevan Balasingam and the Fifa supremo’s office manager Federico Ravinglione.