Special Correspondent, Rafiqul Haque Sikder jahangir:
Taekwondo is one of the names of success in the country’s sports. But hidden under this bright shell, a terrible picture of long-standing irregularities, corruption and abuse of power has emerged. It has been alleged that the career of Lubaba Binte Amjad, a talented female athlete who has won national and international gold medals, is about to be destroyed due to internal conflicts within the federation and the wrath of vested interests. It has been alleged that an attempt is being made to extinguish a rising star through planned propaganda, financial fraud and psychological harassment.
The investigation revealed that during the preparation camp for the South Asian Games (SA Games), 6,000 taka per head was deducted from the monthly allowance allocated to the players. Although the matter was reported to the Federation’s General Secretary, retired Colonel Ershadul Haque and Hasanuzzaman Bablu through the coaches, no remedy was found. On the contrary, evidence of widespread looting was found in the purchase of various equipment, including tracksuits, allocated for the players.
The party representative, Bangladesh Army player Dipu Chakma, was illegally expelled for protesting against these corruptions.
The situation further deteriorated when a few conscious players resigned from the camp in protest.On the other hand, there are allegations that the army taekwondo team was excluded from the national taekwondo competition to make the Ansar team the ‘champion’, with 8 top players including Dipu Chakma being expelled just before the national championship, so that the Ansar force could be unethically made the champion. In protest of this farce, the Bangladesh army team boycotted the tournament. Later, the federation organized a one-sided national championship without the army.Currently, one of the country’s top players, Lubaba Binte Amjad, has been systematically targeted. Despite securing 4th place in the merit list in the player quota at Dhaka University, a group of the federation is repeatedly questioning her. It is known that Lubaba won a gold medal in the 21st National Senior/Junior
Taekwondo Championship in 2024, but due to a mistake by the tournament committee, her age, weight and institution name were wrong in her certificate. Later, the federation itself corrected and authenticated it. But now, the new ad hoc committee of the federation is bypassing the revised certificate and issuing the old wrong certificate, creating complications in her admission process.The question arises,
if the federation committee changes, do the tournaments, certificates and activities organized by the previous committee become invalid? If not, then why is the validity of a recognized tournament being questioned?The crisis of the Taekwondo Federation has intensified after a recently published investigative report revealed the embezzlement of money by Ansar athletes. Those concerned say that playing with the life of a female athlete in this way to satisfy personal anger is unprecedented. Although attempts were made to contact the accused on mobile phones in this regard, they did not receive calls. The conscious sports community has demanded urgent intervention and
departmental investigation by the Sports Ministry to prevent the country’s talented athletes from going abroad and to stop this arbitrariness.
