A number of girls from the unbeaten team of the Bangladesh under-16 women’s football team were reportedly sent alone in a local bus to their hometown on Tuesday.
The report of a television channel suggested that the nine players who reside at Kalsindhur village in Dhobaura upazila in Mymensingh were hassled and hurled with verbal abuse. The heroes of the latest AFC Women’s Championship were traveling by a regular non AC Mymensingh-bound bus service and they did not have any team management staffs or any senior figure in company to guide them.
According to the report, the under-aged girls had to experience backlash from their co-passengers, which took the social media by storm. Many people in Facebook asked for the explanation why the champion team received ill-treatment, despite achieving every kind of possible success in their recent tournament.
Watch the report here.
Bangladesh Football Federation(BFF) responded to the accusation and in an official statement they refuted it.
Naming the incident as a ‘misunderstanding’, BFF claimed that, “the girls were offered air conditioned microbus, but they refused since they are not comfortable with that.”
It added that, “BFF arranged good-quality bus for them.”
The statement further claims that the players were transported to the bus stand with BFF staff accompanying them.
Here’s the full statement by BFF posted on their Facebook page:
Meanwhile, the Facebook page of BFF has been attacked as soon as the news spread. Here is how Bangladesh Football Federation handled the situation:
Photo Courtesy: Facebook page ‘Plaantik’
Source: Ittefaq
