The BFF deputy general secretary Manzoor Hossain Malu confirmed this yesterday after having conversations with federation president SA Sultan and general secretary Anwarul Hoque Helal, who are in Zurich.

With the whole football fraternity eagerly waiting to bid goodbye to the Sultan-led committee, which expired last April, it would be a blow to the proposition of forming a workable committee through the scheduled election for development of the game.

According to the BFF deputy general secretary, the FIFA dismissed the BFF's proposal to hold the polls according to its current statutes.

The FIFA barred the election as it felt that the governing body of the game in Bangladesh failed to amend the statutes according to FIFA suggestions.

"FIFA has told our delegation in Zurich that it will give us a roadmap to amend the statutes in one year's time. The election will have to be held with the amended constitution," Malu told last night.

He added that FIFA and AFC officials including AFC chief Mohammad Bin Hammam talked with the BFF representatives for three days before coming up with the decision yesterday.

"The FIFA wants the secretaries of the committee to be paid officials but we told that we would do that in the next tenure of the new elected body because it is not feasible in Bangladesh. They disagreed to this proposal and also asked us to form FA (Football Association) in every district.

"The FAs will elect councillors to the federation in democratic ways instead of sending nominated district sports association officials as councillors," told Malu conveying the message from Zurich.

"Our delegation even told that the concept would be difficult to implement as it would need the government help. But FIFA and officials were rigid about this."

Football officials, meanwhile, are suspecting the sudden change of heart as the BFF high-ups had claimed earlier that the FIFA had given them the green signal to hold the election according to the current constitution.

The executive committee, criticised by all quarters for making country's football stagnant, has done very little for improvement of the game. It threw away former footballers, who got involved in development procedures, from its different committees over silly reasons like choosing a manager of the national team.

Not only that, the footballers missed an entire season in Dhaka, the heart of domestic football, while the popularity of the game not only declined alarmingly but also reached its lowest ebb. Even the BFF, which abolished the famous Dhaka Premier League and sacrificed all other major tournaments to launch the professional league, could not attract sponsors midway through the competition, which is being played before empty stands.

The performance of the national team also declined with both regional crowns lost and the federation, with the SAFF Championship due this year and the SA Games coming to the country next year, have failed to prepare a plan or hire expert foreign hands.

Having done little over four years, members of the incumbent committee also began groundwork for the elections in a bid to be re-elected. It is alleged that many councillors were selected through the backdoor, keeping the main body of the affiliated organisations in the dark.

It was the BNP-led coalition government's MP Sultan, whose decision to replace the elected body of the BFF with an ad-hoc committee forced FIFA to ban the federation 2001. FIFA lifted the ban only when the elected committee was reinstated but the then general secretary was allegedly forced to submit his resignation to fulfil the wish of the president.