Kazi Salahuddin elected SAFF president for 4th time

Bangladesh Football Federation's (BFF) President Kazi Md Salahuddin has been elected president of the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) for four consecutive terms.

The former Bangladesh national footballer became SAFF president unopposed as there was no contender.

The announcement was made in the elective congress of SAFF at a hotel in the capital of Dhaka on Saturday.

BSS adds: The re-election means Salahuddin will serve the term till 2026 as president of SAFF.

The congress also re-elected Ugyen Wangchhuk, the general secretary of the Bhutan Football Federation, as the SAFF executive committee’s member till 2026, and Jaswar Umar, president of the Sri Lanka Football Federation as the AFC executive committee member representing SAFF.

Umar will be SAFF’s representative for the AFC executive committee till 2023. Both the candidates ran unopposed for the positions.

The SAFF electoral committee informed that there are four vacant positions, namely two vice presidents, one male executive committee member and one female executive committee member representative in the executive committee, all of who will be elected in the next congress to be held next year.  

Talking to the media after his re-election as the president, Salahuddin, also president of the Bangladesh Football Federation, thanked all the member associations for the trust they had in him and urged all to work as a family to work for the betterment of football in the region.

“We are not the best footballing region in the world but we have to work as a family, a brother, to uplift the game in the region,” he said adding that “When I was elected as the president in 2009, we just had the SAFF men’s championship, but now till this day we have conducted 27 competitions. This shows how much progress we have made over the years.”

Earlier, in the SAFF executive committee’s meeting held before the congress, they decided to hold the SAFF Women’s Championship 2022 in Nepal from August 29 to September 10, this year, while the Sri Lanka Football Federation reassured their commitment to hold the SAFF U-17 Championship scheduled to be held from September 5-16.

The committee also decided to review the proposal put forward by marketing company Sports Partner for the sponsorship of the SAFF Men’s Championship.

Likewise, the SAFF disciplinary and ethics code and SAFF code of conduct was also approved by the executive committee.

RI/SU