Canary Wharf Pick Players to Travel to England

The local footballers under Canary Wharf's youth development programme will be given a great opportunity to travel to England next year for a month-long advanced training.

Canary Wharf, a British-based group which sponsors the four-year football development programme in Bangladesh, promised to send at least 15 players out of the 34-member camp to London's David Beckham Academy in May next year.

"We will take the players to England for four weeks in May, 2008. They will also receive advanced training at Arsenal and West Ham's academies. We have been trying to take all 34 players but so far, we have ensured at least 15 players will go," said Zakir Khan, community affairs manager of Canary Wharf yesterday. He was talking to reporters at the BKSP, where British aviation minister Jim Fitzpatrick, MP, went to visit the 18-month-old youth camp.

Fitzpatrick, on a personal visit to Bangladesh, enjoyed a superb day out and also scored the lone goal - a spectacular headed effort by the 55-year-old - for the Canary Wharf trainees in an exhibition match against veteran footballers featuring the likes of Aslam, Sabbir and Kaiser Hamid. The ex-booters won the match 3-1 with Imtiaz Sultan Johnny, Imtiaz Ahmed Nakib and Jamal scoring one goal apiece.

"Canary Wharf has been working for the development of Tower Hamlets in east London. I hope it will be able to make a great contribution in development of football here. We will help it as far as we can," said the Labour Party MP. Canary Wharf's strategic advisor Howard Dawver said that the organisation has been considering prospects of building a football academy in Bangladesh. "Nothing has been finalised about the academy yet. But we will talk with Emirates and Clifton Group about it," he said.

It was learned that the Canary Wharf officials will visit the United Arab Emirates on their way back to England to talk with their Emirates counterparts. Clifton group is a British-based group owned by Bangladeshi expatriates.

Chief coach of the camp Golam Sarwar Tipu, meanwhile, was optimistic about the future of his students. "They have made significant improvements. I believe that they will be competitive enough to win places in our age-group teams," said Tipu who feels the need of an academy for training purpose as all residential camps depend on the availability of space at the BKSP, country's lone sports institute at Savar.

Local coordinator Fazlur Rahman Babul, Bangladesh Football Federation vice-president Monir Ahmed were present in the daylong trip to Savar among others.