Feckless Tales of a Sports Lover

Did you watch the opening ceremony of London Olympic Games in the year of 2012? When Bangladeshi Olympic team was marching on the pitch, can you remember what the commentator said? Since the holy month of Ramadan was going on, it was quite difficult for me to watch the late night show; however, I did manage to watch that at the time of Sehri. And my exuberating sleepless night just turned into a turmoil after hearing those robust comments- ‘The country is bursting out with people but it has only managed to send five athletes. It’s quite embarrassing to see a country of 160 million people still fighting to gain an Olympic medal.’ I know these aren’t the exact words, however, the main theme was just like that. I don’t know what other Bangladeshi citizens felt, but it was just a slap on my all night’s excitement.

4 years have passed since then, another Olympic is knocking at the feet. And I’ve decided to overlook the opening ceremony of Rio Olympic. All other south Asian nations, in this period, only made progress where Bangladesh just rode on a dilapidated bus which gradually pulling it back forth. As a sports lover, it’s quite disgusting as well as painful to watch. Forget cricket; a nation’s sports inclination can’t only be represented by a sole sport. You may tell that we don’t have money but I’ll surely argue on that. Let me put some arguments to espouse my thoughts.

Can you remember Asif Hossain Khan? If you are a die-hard fan of sports (not cricket only) then you should remember that he was the winner of the men’s ‘Individual Air Rifle’ event in the Commonwealth Games, took place at Manchester in the year of 2002. But kids today do not know his name. This is not the irony and I’m not concentrating on this ‘trivial’ matter! Do you know, this athlete was put into jail just because he remonstrated some police actions at the shooting club? He’s beaten severely and his gold won arms were fractured. Being stigmatized as a criminal, with his fractured arm and without any medical support, he’d to spend nights at jail. Just think, if this treatment was done to a national cricketer what would be the reaction of common people? Believe me, no person except the shooters, protest against this severe humiliation!

The Silver Medalist of that event in Manchester Commonwealth Games was Abhinav Bindra. At 2008 Beijing Olympics, he won the gold medal in the same event and made his country proud. It’s the first gold by an Indian which was achieved in an event participated by individuals (India secured gold only in hockey before). Is it rubbish to say that Asif could be the winner in lieu of Bindra? Actually it’s not tentative; when Asif was rotting in jail, Bindra was doing his job preparing for the Olympic. We do not deserve a gold, we deserve humiliation for our deeds.

We have a great tendency to humiliate Indians and always put ourselves on the top of them in every aspect. I always found this act as hypocrisy. Well, Indians certainly do have some flaws and they are surely not quite clean. But, listen, they do their jobs perfectly when the situation demands it for the country. Let other topics leave, I want to focus on the sports. Bangladesh is the only country in the world where domestic leagues get stopped because of the commotion in the pertaining federation! Hockey league has started this year after a long three years gap. The reason was the remonstration of some clubs who didn’t want to play under the authoritative federation chairperson! These dirty politics were started when Bangladesh was truly on the verge of elation in hockey. The national and under-23 teams both performed well in Asian level and national team secured 8^th place in the Asian ranking which was making the way to take part in World Hockey League. But the ramification of these political filths intrigued players to take sides, and as a consequence, some of our best players faced embargo to play! Others were snubbed. And today, what is the position of Bangladesh Hockey? Do you have any answer?

Well, I was telling about the hypocrisy of us. We always censure the Indians, although in return we get nothing. Look at them today- they have franchised leagues in almost every genre of sports even in Kabaddi. I am optimistic to guess that, people in Bangladesh at least know Kabaddi as our national game. Once we defeated Pakistan, Nepal, Iran or Sri Lanka in Kabaddi covering a large margin. With India we had a tough fight albeit, we secured win most of the times. But today, we are failing to secure our position in the world cup. We are not the best in this region today, in fact we are not even the second best! It is quite obvious actually. Do you know that we possessed the world’s best raider Ziaur Rahman in our Kabaddi team who still grabbing some world records? Do you even know what is called ‘raider’ in Kabaddi? Well, the ball is on your court now!

We are lagging in every sport field, in every genre of tournament. We only managed to achieve three gold medals in SAAF Games this year where the last games were quite futile for us as we won seventeen medals. We are failing to secure position at semis in SAAF Football Championship. Nepal, Maldives once conceded goals more than ten by our football team and today we have to play against them for securing a safe ‘Draw.’ Quite funny, isn’t it? I’m not daring to demonstrate the massacre in FIFA World Cup qualifying rounds! Let’s forget these.

What we lack? What is our problem? You can say that we don’t have money but it’s also applicable for our neighboring nations. What we lack is proper plan and the presence of connoisseurs. Most of our organizers are avaricious of money and they do come to sports arena to seek reputation and power not to do the welfare. Many of them are businessmen and many of them don’t have any knowledge about the rules of the games. Bangladesh is the only country in the world where national stadium is rentable for concert and other political ceremonies altering the ongoing league schedule! National Sports building is the place of ostentation rather than effective decision making. Do you ever heard about vandalism in federation office for conceding defeat? It’s possible in Bangladesh only as Arambagh Club Supporters did so at Bangladesh Football Federation Office. In Bangladesh only, athletes suffer from accommodation, food and other problems while most so called officials just put an attendance at air-conditioned office without caring these. National Swimming coach gets robbed here, athletes get diurnal allowance of 1.5$ only. Most district stadiums here are the place of drug addicts and cattle grazing. When this thing is stated in front of the authority, they say about the lack of money but contemporarily they spend millions just for showing their power to opposing party for the upcoming federation election!

Why I’m writing these? No one will pay heed here. No one will get embarrassed. It’s better to shout for Usain Bolt then, we can also shout for Mo Farah. I will certainly watch Olympic considering myself a cosmopolitan! Me, Bangladeshi, at the time of opening ceremony of Rio Olympic? Absolutely not!!!