The Bangladesh national football team represents Bangladesh at the international level, and is regulated by the Bangladesh Football Federation. It is a member of the AFC. The team has not yet qualified for the World Cup. They only qualified for the Asian Cup once in 1980, where they were eliminated in the first round. Like other countries in the subcontinent, Bangladesh has stagnated due to the popularity of football and cricket. After independence, the team was founded in 1972 and became a member of FIFA in 1974.
Although Bangladesh made a good start in the first World Cup qualifiers in 1986 (victories against Indonesia and Thailand) it could not hold on. Bangladesh's result in the continental competition Asian Cup is also not satisfactory.
However, under the Vision Asia project, Bangladesh is trying to improve the quality of football. At present some steps are being taken for the development of domestic league and youth football. Everyone thinks that this decision to develop football was made at the right time.
Football is still very popular in Bangladesh. Following that footsteps, the Bangladesh national football team became the champion of the 2003 South Asian Football Federation Cup (SAF Football). Bangladesh won the tiebreaker against Maldives in the presence of 50,000 supporters. This result has been elusive to Bangladesh for so long. In the winning streak, Bangladesh defeated India 2-1 in the semifinals. Everyone in Bangladesh hopes that such results will serve as a regulator for their success at the continental level.
Planning and Implementation: Cabinet Division, A2I, BCC, DoICT and BASIS