After nearly three and half months of investigation and twelve meetings, the investigation committee of Bangladesh Football Federation submitted its final report to the BFF executive committee on Sunday.
Investigation committee chairman and BFF vice-president Kazi Nabil Ahmed handed over the report to BFF president Kazi Salahuddin with a lot of observations and recommendations.
The secrecy triggered concern among the journalists and common people, but both Nabil and Salahuddin said that the executive committee would take ultimate decision whether the report needed to be publicly published.
Why does the BFF investigation committee keep the report secret? Nabil replied, “This investigation committee was formed by the BFF executive committee. It (BFF EC) instructed us to further investigate on the grounds of FIFA’s accusation and to submit a proper report.”
“So we directly handed over our report to the BFF president to submit it to BFF EC. The EC will do the next. We believe that our report will help to run BFF in the right way in the future as well as to help the committee members to perform their duties properly,” he added.
The committee was formed by the BFF EC on April 17 to investigate what prompted FIFA to ban its former general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag for two years. Specifically, the committee’s main focus was to further investigate the financial irregularities involving FIFA funds.
While asked what the committee found after a long investigation, Nabil further said, “It’s part of the report, so we can’t disclose anything here. The report comprises a lot of pages and there are a lot of observations, recommendations.”
The committee questioned some of BFF employees during the investigation, but the prime accused Shohag was not summoned. While asked if any action has been taken against him, the committee chief replied, “We didn’t summon him during the investigation. But whether any action has been taken against him will be known in the full report.”
BFF president Kazi Salahuddin talked to the media after Nabil. He said, “Thanks to all members of this committee as they submitted the report after surveying the whole issue. I just got the report, it was sealed.”
“Now I will call an executive committee meeting immediately. I will hand it over to the board and they will take action. I heard that the (committee) gave a lot of recommendations. I should not say anything until reading the report,” he added.
While asked if the report should be published publicly or not, the BFF chief replied, “I have no problem. But I'm not the lone person on the board. I will immediately call a meeting and submit it to the board... I will definitely read the report. I will just read and submit it to the board. The board will decide.”
“There is no negative or positive, because the negative-positive is all in the ground ... Can you promise no storm will hit the country? Can you promise the ministry? But what I can say is that we will definitely try not to repeat these things in future,” he concluded.
