One of Bangladesh football's darkest chapters - Why FIFA has banned BFF Secretary Shohag

Just days after being heavily criticised for not sending the women's team due to "financial constraints", the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) hit an all-time low as its General Secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag got banned after using "false and/or falsified documents" to justify payments made by the BFF with FIFA funds.

Shohag, also a former member of the FIFA Dispute Resolution Chamber, will have to pay a fine of TK 12 lakh (10,000 CHF).

The FIFA's official website attached a 51-page PDF of the verdict as well with the media release, describing the notifications of the grounds of the decision. 

The FIFA specifically mentioned that in his position as General Secretary of the BFF, Shohag misused FIFA Forward funds and negligently allowed the use of forged or falsified documents to support the transactions of the BFF paid with FIFA funds.

The Investigatory Chamber noted that the FIFA Forward Programme mandates that all member associations submit their payments for this Program directly from the allocated bank account. But as a result of the various central reviews, it was discovered that BFF did not only utilise its dedicated bank account to pay for expenses relating to the FIFA Forward Fund, but also its operational bank account.

For instance, it was highlighted in the 2016 Central assessment that only USD 90,014 of the USD 708,820 in FIFA Forward money received were paid straight from the dedicated bank account, representing a transaction accuracy rate of only 12.69%.

Additionally, various samples were examined, and the results showed that salaries totaling USD 107 and travel-related expenses for women's football did not have any supporting paperwork. 

The national coach and technical director received cash payments totaling USD 44,100.41 as salaries. However, BFF'S bank records showed that these salaries were paid by bank transfer which indicated that these salaries were "potentially paid twice".

A second instance of double payment of expenditures occurred when USD 35,573 in administrative costs from 2014 and 2015 were reported to 2016.

A total of USD 124,535 in subsidies - a sum not included in the Forward regulations and not sanctioned by FIFA - were granted to Bangladeshi football clubs. These disbursements, of which USD 53,588 was paid in cash, were also unsupported by any supporting paperwork.

Because of these, FIFA curtailed the funding of the BFF and in 2017, an action plan with them was agreed upon. This action plan required the BFF to only use cash payments for the minimal number of goals that FIFA and BFF had already agreed upon in writing.

The FIFA Audit & Compliance Committee placed additional restrictions on the disbursement of development money to BFF after the Investigatory Chamber highlighted that the Central reviews conducted in 2017 and 2018 both identified the same problems.

The restrictions were (partially) withdrawn after an evaluation by the FIFA Audit & Compliance Committee in light of the Central Review for the year 2019 which found that the majority of the issues detected in the prior years had been partially remedied. The Investigatory Chamber did observe that additional cash payments related to FIFA funding were made.

The restrictions were partially withdrawn after an evaluation by the FIFA Audit & Compliance Committee in light of the Central Review for the year 2019 which found that the majority of the issues detected in the prior years had been partially remedied. However, the Investigatory Chamber did observe that additional cash payments related to FIFA funding were being made again.

The Investigatory Chamber then went on to say that due to the financial irregularities noted in the Central review for the year 2019, BDO undertook a forensic audit, which turned up the identical problems indicated in the successive Central reviews.

The goal of the FIFA Forward bank account, according to BDO, is to receive FIFA funding and pay for FIFA-related expenses.

In this regard, BOD claimed that it had discovered substantial financial withdrawals from this account from 2017 to 2020 that had nothing to do with the Forward Programme and that BFF had not provided any supporting information or an explanation for them.

Furthermore, there was a significant difference of around USD 561,865 between the total amount of cash expenditures reported by BFF and the total amount of cash withdrawals.

Consequently, BDO claimed that the substantial use of cash withdrawals made it challenging to track transactions retroactively and obtain proof of payment and that it increased the risk that funds would be misappropriated, fraudulently used, or used for activities that were not in line with the program because the audit trail and controls relating to cash were inherently weaker than for other forms of payment.

With respect to these cash withdrawals, the final report included explanations submitted by Abu Nayeem Shohag, who stated that, "Sometimes we did not receive funds timely from our Sponsors but we had
to organise different football tournaments/events timely. In that case, we were compelled to take money from FIFA Fund as temporary loan as per the decision of BFF."

"Moreover, most of the time we could not collect the specific amount from the Sponsors as promised by them. Then we arranged the required fund from bank OD & from our Executive committee members as loan and subsequently we deposited these amounts into BFF's other bank accounts. Afterwards we spent money from these accounts according to FIFA approved budget. So, we have taken money from the FIFA designated account as loan only," he added.

In contrast to the specialised FIFA Forward bank account, 181 transactions totaling USD 540,387 were paid from other BFF bank accounts, according to BDO, but were nevertheless reported to FIFA as Forward-related expenses.

In particular, the Investigatory Chamber emphasised that the financial irregularities totaled USD 597,084, which represented 17.73% of the tested transactions and is clearly not a negligible amount.

The FIFA concluded by saying that as the General Secretary of the BFF, Abu Nayeem Shohag was in charge of putting policies and internal procedures in place to make sure that all transactions were accurately recorded and carried out which is why he has been handed the ban.