Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Dhaka: A Club Licensing Workshop was recently organised for the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) in Dhaka.
The workshop was held under the League Development Programme spearheaded by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Member Associations (MA) Development Department to assist MAs in developing a club licensing framework, since it is mandatory for clubs to be licensed to participate in the AFC Cup from 2018.
The Technical and Strategic Director of BFF Paul Smalley first presented the BFF long-term Strategic Football Development Plan 2028 as well as the vision and mission for BFF and stressed on the development of leagues and clubs to achieve the goals.
After the adoption of the newly drafted Long Term Strategic Plan, the two-day workshop was held to explain the AFC Cup club licensing regulations, requirements, procedures, vision, mission and key areas of club development to the top management of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) and Bangladesh Champions League (BCL) clubs for the 2017 season.
Twelve clubs participating in the BPL and eight clubs from the BCL attended the workshop, which was divided into two sessions. Firstly, AFC Development Officer Yogesh Desai informed the clubs about the credibility of club licensing, commitment of top management of the clubs, core process, annual review, data analysis and criteria - in terms of infrastructure, finance, legal, personnel and administration.
BFF Club Licensing Manager Mazharul Islam gave a presentation and a brief demonstration on the Club Licensing Administration System (CLAS) to the clubs. CLAS is an innovative online platform allowing clubs to comply with the AFC club licensing criteria and MAs are benefitted by the transparency and administrative control of national club licensing.
The second session was an open discussion for the participants to address the issues and challenges they might face during the implementation process. Feedback was given by AFC and BFF officials to each query raised.
BFF has set timelines for the clubs to fulfill the criteria with full assistance from the BFF and the AFC.
Photo: BFF