By Shuvo Alam
What was the most cherished item for a young man during the 1980s? The most common answer to that question would have to be a football. We often hear the stories of great Latin footballers and their passion for the sport. This particular type of ball is tantamount to their life, as they not only carry it around throughout the day but also sleep with it at night.
According to Eduardo Galeano, “They call it by many names: the sphere, the round, the tool, the globe, the balloon, the projectile. In Brazil, no one doubts the ball is a woman. Brazilians call her pudgy, gorduchinha, or baby, menina, and they also give her names like Maricota, Leonor, or Margarita. Pelé kissed her in Maracanã when he scored his 1,000th goal, and Di Stéfano built her a monument in front of his house, a bronze ball with a plaque that says: Thanks, old girl.”
The game has slowly started to lose its appeal among the children of Bangladesh over the years, partly due to the emergence of video games and television, but more importantly due to the lack of playing fields. Young boys and girls these days are picking up electronic devices rather than footballs.
Bangladesh has not only lost the glory and its position in the map of football, but its football industry is almost completely wiped off as well. This has led to an increase in the price of football.
After visiting one of the largest sports markets in Dhaka’s Bangabandhu Stadium area, I found that balls of different size and quality are being sold at various prices ranging from Tk. 150 to Tk. 2,500. These products were imported from countries such as China, Pakistan and even India.
My search for a locally made football in almost every shop turned out to be futile. When questioned, the traders informed me about how most of the football factories that were located in places like Keraniganj, Demra, and Savar were either closed or being used for different purposes. Amjad Hossain, a trader, talked about how there were 10 factories producing footballs five years ago, but now, all of the factories have stopped the production of footballs.
“Therefore, we are now heavily dependent on imported footballs so that we can sell them to the football players and lovers,” he added. He also said that these balls were not only used in the local and regional football competitions. Many national level events have also used these balls.
“The imported balls are of better quality in comparatively low prices, and even the color of the balls are vibrant,” claimed Shahbuddin Ahmed, a shop owner from Gulistan. He insisted these are the reasons the locally made products failed to compete with the foreign ones and had been driven out of business.
This blow for the local producers was significant during World Cup 2010 held in South Africa. Classified as the most followed event globally, the local market was inundated with imported balls from China and Pakistan during the competition.
Faruk Uz Zaman, who once owned a football factory in Demra, said he started making jerseys and sports merchandises instead of footballs, as he incurred a loss every year since 2010.
He initially had six employees working for 10 hours a day to make approximately 100 footballs a month. In 2012, he turned his football factory into a merchandise factory as most of his workers began working for readymade garments factories with higher wages. Due to lack of capital, they could not afford high-tech football machines. Most of the raw materials were imported from foreign countries, due to which they had to supply the locally made footballs with relatively higher prices in comparison to the Chinese and Pakistani products. “This was how we started losing our markets and stopped making footballs,” he said.
The Profit Pitch
The sports merchandise traders had thought that if Bangladesh could earn at least $500 million for exporting World Cup 2014 jerseys of most of the players from the 16 participating teams, then maybe the country could be a big name in producing footballs.
During this time in 2014, Bangladesh had also manufactured the national team jerseys for Brazil, the most successful team in World Cup history as well as the hosts that year. According to media reports, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) took a decision to imprint the words “Made in Bangladesh” at the lower part of the jersey in order to pay homage to the victims of the Rana Plaza tragedy in 2013 that took the lives of over 1,100 people and the Tazreen Garments fire that killed over a 100 people.
“If the world’s best football team can use merchandise made in Bangladesh, then we believe someday they could be playing with the footballs made in Bangladesh,” said Nafis Ahmed, a football lover and the supporter of Brazil’s national football team.
An industry producing football and other sports gears will not only earn money, boost our economy, and provide employment, but it will also provide the next generation with a refreshing childhood. A football can surely transform a technology-dependent childhood into an athletic one.
