After visiting Korea DPR and Mongolia, President Gianni Infantino – accompanied by a FIFA delegation – today arrived in Bangladesh, where he had the opportunity to review the development efforts of the national football association and discuss with the state authorities about the important role that our sport can play in society.

During his one-day visit to Dhaka, the FIFA President met Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, a great sport and football lover. Both leaders shared their views on the key opportunities that football in particular, and sport in general, can offer boys and girls, and society as a whole, as a strong vector for education. Particularly, and acknowledging the good recent performances of the girls’ youth national teams of Bangladesh, Infantino also underlined FIFA’s plans to further boost investment in women’s football development across all of its member associations, contributing to the empowerment of women around the world.

The FIFA President then went on to meet Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) President Kazi Salahuddin and the BFF Executive Committee at BFF House. After a tour of the BFF headquarters including its football pitch, the two presidents discussed the current status of football in Bangladesh, with the men’s national team having claimed an encouraging draw earlier this week in Kolkata against regional rivals India in the qualifying rounds for the FIFA World Cup 2022™.

“We need to keep on investing in football development here in Bangladesh and in the whole South Asian region, which has two billion people and truly loves football. We need, together, to organise more competitions, to invest more in infrastructure and to support the clubs. There is great passion for football here and we need to build on this passion for future generations,” said the FIFA President.

To end the programme, and before taking off for his next stop on his tour, the FIFA President answered questions from the local media during a packed press conference.