Salahuddin elected SAFF president for 4th staight time
Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) president Kazi Mohammad Salahuddin was re-elected as the chief of the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) for the fourth time in a row Saturday.
He was elected president unopposed for a consecutive fourth term till 2026 during the SAFF Ordinary Congress 2022 held at a Dhaka hotel on Saturday as no other candidate filed a nomination to run against him.
The congress also re-elected Ugyen Wangchhuk, general secretary of the Bhutan Football Federation, as the SAFF executive committee member till 2026.
Jaswar Umar, president of the Sri Lanka Football Federation (SFF), was elected the Asian Football Confederation executive committee member to represent SAFF till 2023. Both candidates were also elected unopposed.
The SAFF electoral committee said there are four vacant positions in the executive committee – two vice-presidents, one male and one female executive committee members will be elected in the next SAFF Congress in 2023.
Earlier, a SAFF executive committee meeting was held before the congress. It decided to hold the SAFF Women’s Championship 2022 in Nepal from 29 August to 10 September.
The SFF reiterated its commitment to hold the SAFF U-17 Championship during 5-16 September.
The committee also decided to review the proposal put forward by marketing company Sports Partner for the sponsorship of the SAFF Men’s Championship.
The SAFF Disciplinary, Ethics Code and SAFF Code of Conduct were also approved by the executive committee.
Speaking after his re-election as president, Salahuddin thanked all the member associations for the trust they had placed in him and urged all to work as a family 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, as brothers, to uplift the standard of the game in the region,” he added.
“When I was elected as the president in 2009, we just had the SAFF Men’s Championship, but after that, we organised 27 competitions. This shows how much progress we have made over the years,” Salahuddin said.
The 27 different SAFF competitions that have been arranged since 2009 are the SAFF Championships (six times), SAFF Women’s Championships (five times), SAFF U-15 Men’s Championship (six times), SAFF U-15 Women’s Championship (three times), U-17/U-18 Men’s Championships (four times) and SAFF U-18/19 Women’s Championship (three times).