BFF's investigative committee to ‘submit report within July 30’

The Bangladesh Football Federation's (BFF) special committee, formed nearly three-and-half months ago to further investigate the financial irregularities involving FIFA funds, is expected to submit its final report by this month.

Previously, FIFA on April 14 banned the BFF general secretary, Abu Nayeem Shohag, from all types of football activities for two years, citing the use of falsified documents to justify payments made by the BFF with FIFA funds.

The local game's governing body, as a result, had formed a 10-member special committee three days later to investigate the matter further. 

"We are hoping to submit our report within 30 July. We sought some time from the BFF president [Kazi Salahuddin] because we could not sit due to my Covid-19 treatment abroad, Eid vacation and BFF general secretary's engagement in a training abroad," Kazi Nabil Ahmed, BFF vice-president and also the investigation committee's chairman, told reporters after the committee held its ninth meeting at the BFF House on Monday. 

Since their first meeting on May 7, some of BFF employees were questioned but the prime accused, Shohag, was not summoned. The committee initially had a deadline of 30 working days but later had asked for two 15-day extensions in succession.

"We can't tell everything in detail at the moment but we are examining everything at field level. You will see everything in the report," said Ahmed, adding that the investigation from the Youth and Sports Ministry on the FIFA matter would not contradict their findings.

Ahmed further informed that they would sit again on Thursday and two more meetings are due next week.