Front Page • Latest • Perspectives • Slide
Defamation is not what they deserve
Tarannum Haider Maliha
Asian Football Confederation has 47 member countries among which Bangladesh is qualified as one of the best 8 teams in the AFC U-16 Women’s Championship Qualifiers 2017. The girls who have brought such pride to the nation have faced some unwanted and offensive incidents just 48 hours after their achievement.
The first incident occurred when nine of the girls of the team was travelling to their home in Kalshindhur village in Mymensingh. They were harassed and teased by their co-passengers when they were travelling alone in a local bus. A local TV report, aired on 6 September shows that the other passengers of the bus was verbally abusing them and no team management personnel of Bangladesh Football Federation was accompanying the under-aged girls.
This created a huge fuss on social media, especially on Facebook. People shared their dissatisfaction and concerns regarding this matter.
Sharing the TV report on Facebook, renowned filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki wrote: “Shame on management. We are seeing a twisted picture of sports management here. How can we even dream to move forward with such sport administration? My question is; where does all the budget allotted for sports go? When we start spending money efficiently on preparations and training, only then we can hope to get high-quality athletes.”
Screenplay writer Apel Mahmud also expressed frustration. Mac Nazir questions the sincerity of the Bangladesh Football Federation. Activist Sabuj Paul thinks the players were mistreated because they are women.
In their defense, the BFF in a statement said, “BFF wants to clear everyone concerned that the girls were offered air conditioned microbus, but they refused since they are not comfortable with that and most of them are prone to vomiting. Then BFF arranged good-quality bus for them, however, they ultimately demanded direct local bus to reach their neighborhood for their ease and BFF arranged so considering the hassle they would have face to change carriers during journey.”
If that’s the case, then how do they travel abroad? Most of the players of this team have played in Nepal and became champion. Also they won the AFC U-14 championship in Tajikistan. The buses that took them to the stadiums in those countries were definitely air-conditioned buses. How did they managed their vomiting then and still managed to be the champions?
Just after a day of the first incident, another one occurred on September 7 when the physical education teacher of Kalshindhur High School & College verbally abused the nine players and their parents threatening them with TCs as they refused to play the school match that collided with BFF’s schedule. Later on, Jubed Talukdar and his men at Mohilla Market in Kolshindur area beat up Sobuj Mia, 40, father of the goalkeeper Taslima. Sabuj lodged a case with Dhobaura Police Station against Talukder the following day and the school governing body suspended Talukder temporarily on September 9 for his actions.
Observing the incident, the only convincing reason for such ill-treatment appears to be the players being women, precisely underprivileged women. The passengers in the bus had the guts to criticize the girls because they were playing a sport which are entitled to men. We never heard of such incidents happened with our male football or any other sports’ players. This is also evident in BFF’s arrangement for them where other teams stayed in Hotel Purbani , the Bangladesh team was made to stay at the BFF building. The reason they showed for that was to save money. So, is this the same reason why they send the under-aged girls to their home by a local bus without any responsible person as their guardian?
Though the BFF later made proper arrangement for them when they came back to Dhaka and the school teacher also apologized for his misbehavior, it took a lot of fuss and pressure from the general people to do that. But doesn’t the matter supposed to be like this
way from the beginning? Shouldn’t we respect and adore the accomplishers of our country the same way irrespective of gender? The matter seems sorted out this time but the root of the problem is much deeper than we think.
We should work on solving the root of this problem and the first step would be broadening our perception about women playing different sports.
We should not forget that they are the accomplishers of our country,
they deserve to be respected not abused.