Introduction: Protests against footballers forces team from West Bengal to return
A 20-member women’s football team sent under the auspices of the Indian Football Association (IFA) from West Bengal has returned from Bangladesh cutting short its three-match tourney there.
FIFA, football’s governing body, has stipulated that all affiliate countries have to promote women’s football in order to derive certain benefits from the world body.
Keeping that in mind, the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) invited a woman’s team from India to play against Bangladesh.
A Press Trust of India (PTI) report quotes a ‘Daily Star’ article from Dhaka that says, “The team returned to India because of some stiff resistance from religious fanatics.”
A religious group in Bangladesh, in the article, is quoted as saying, “Women playing football is degrading and obscene.”
Sources say the women played their first match in Jessore even as a protest march against women wearing shorts and playing football took place outside.
Says Kuntala Ghosh Testidar, the technical director of the team who was in Bangladesh, from Kolkata, “The first match was played to a packed stadium.
There were at least 10,000 people, both men and women, inside and we beat the Bangladesh team 2- 1.
“Considering the inexperienced Bangladesh outfit, some of them were schoolgirls, their play did them immense credit.
At that time, we did hear rumblings that people were protesting outside the stadium, but none of the team members saw anything.
In fact, when we were filtering out of the stadium, people were congratulating us on our football skill.”
According to reports, the anti-women’s football wave gained momentum and their second match in Mirpur, a Dhaka suburb, was played to empty stands because of security threats. Says Kuntala, “We beat them 4-0.”
It was after these two matches that officials decided to pack up and return to India, as it was too risky as the anti-women footballers winds were blowing stronger than ever.
The West Bengal team arrived home on Wednesday without playing its third match in Nethrokone.
Says Kuntala, “We faced no harassment on the streets. We did not see any protest but heard that groups were against women playing football in shorts.”
Asked if the protests were part of an anti-India wave, in particular, Kuntala says “No. We gather it was against women playing football in general.”
Kuntala consoled the distraught Bangladesh women, who she said showed great promise on the football field, saying, “Bangladesh is a young women’s footballing country.
In fact, most of these players have been playing for barely a month. Anything that goes against the grain is bound to face opposition.”
The ex-India player, captain and coach, continues: “Even when we started playing in India, we encountered problems.
People in villages actually used to say — forget football, we’ll go and look at the women’s legs.
“It took nearly 10 years for people to accept that women could play football. Bangladesh women should not lose heart.
This is a one-off incident and they should continue playing despite protests.”
The Women’s Football Association
(WFA) in India was incepted in 1975.