Addressing students, Prime Minister Tarique Rahman said: ‘I want this Gold Cup football tournament to be started not only in primary schools but in secondary schools too. So you will have to be well prepared.’
He made the remarks as chief guest at the final of the Primary School Gold Cup Football Tournament (boys and girls) on Saturday.
The prime minister said students must excel not only in sport but in everything. ‘Only then can we build a beautiful and strong Bangladesh,’ he said.
‘The football World Cup is on now. Messi, Ronaldo and Mbappé are playing there; players like that must emerge from among you,’ he said. ‘We are aiming for good results at the Olympics.’
He urged the children to keep up their sport: ‘Don’t give up games. Play whichever sport you love and keep practising. I congratulate not only the winners but everyone who supported this tournament. We must build a strong Bangladesh, a famous Bangladesh. Bangladesh first.’
Addressing the students again, he said: ‘Many of you are talented in other areas too. You are the future of Bangladesh. You will have to run the Bangladesh of tomorrow. We are growing old. You must run Bangladesh better than we did.’
He said he would tell the organisers of the Primary School Gold Cup to contact the Guinness World Records authorities so the tournament could be entered in the Guinness book.
‘Today the whole world knows our cricket team. In the same way, people across the world will come to know us through football, and through other sports too, God willing. You will be ambassadors for the whole world,’ he said. He urged the students to take Bangladesh forward in every field and to make a single pledge — to carry the country double or triple as far as the older generation had. It was not enough only to study or only to play, he added; students should pursue cultural activities and every other kind of practice as well.
Congratulating the winners and runners-up, he said he wanted to congratulate all 2.2 million students taking part, along with their teachers and parents.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman was the chief guest at the event, which was presided over by Education and Primary & Mass Education Minister Dr A N M Ehsanul Haque Milon. Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed, State Minister for Primary & Mass Education Bobby Hajjaj and the prime minister’s education adviser Mahdi Amin were among others present.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report