Improvement Satisfactory for Ferguson

British football coach Anthony Ferguson was hopeful about the future of the youth football camp in Bangladesh, which is run by local experts under the auspices of Canary Wharf with support from Emirates.

Ferguson, who spent over a week with the 32 young prospects at BKSP, told yesterday before his departure to the UK that he was impressed by the improvement of the players at the start of the second year's camp.

The boys, trained by a panel of local coaches under head coach Ghulam Sarwar Tipu, had been handpicked from 150 players of the first-phase camp, who were selected from 4,500 youngsters who joined trials across the country.

"We picked up where had left off. The boys have made excellent progress, which has exceeded our expectations. Some of them have matured in football terms. Their ball skills have improved and they can now communicate among themselves effectively and the commitment is 100 per cent," told Ferguson, who was accompanied by assistant coach Barry Todd.

"We just want the local coaches to spend more time with them. This will speed up their development process even further," said Ferguson adding that he was satisfied with the physical improvement of the players too.

"We believe these boys have splendid future and will grow into good footballers. We feel very confident of inviting some of them to the United Kingdom to train at the Canary Wharf Academy. We'll take them to watch training sessions at Arsenal and matches between famous clubs, hopefully in August."