"Bangladesh used to be football mad."
Bangladesh has a population of more than 170 million, a passionate footballing history and a diaspora stretching across the world, yet the country has never qualified for a FIFA World Cup.
A new documentary is challenging the reasons behind that failure, arguing that Bangladesh already has the players capable of changing its footballing fortunes – they simply have not been found.
The Lost XI is by British-Bangladeshi filmmaker Javed Khan and it explores how a country once obsessed with football lost its way, and why talent scattered across the diaspora could hold the key to its future.
Its release also provides a timely opportunity to reconsider what Bangladesh needs to do to compete internationally.
Rather than simply asking why the national team has struggled, the documentary sets out to identify the players, examine the problems holding the sport back and offer a practical plan for change.
Why has Bangladesh Fallen Behind?
Bangladesh was once a football-mad nation, with domestic rivalries capable of filling stadiums and attracting enormous public attention.
The Abahani-Mohammedan derby was among the country’s biggest sporting occasions, while 46,000 supporters watched Bangladesh win the South Asian title in 2003.
However, football’s popularity gradually declined as cricket became the country’s dominant sport.
Bangladesh achieved Test status in 2000, with its inaugural Test match played at a football stadium, marking a significant shift in the country’s sporting priorities.
The financial imbalance between the two sports has since become increasingly difficult to ignore.
According to the documentary, the Bangladesh Cricket Board has around Tk 1,400 crore (£84 million) in reserves, compared with an annual budget of approximately Tk 62 crore (£37 million) for the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF).
Governance problems have also damaged the sport’s prospects. FIFA’s Ethics Committee sanctioned football federation officials in 2023 and 2024 over falsified documents, adding to concerns about the administration of the game.
Javed told DESIblitz: “Bangladesh used to be football mad. Abahani v Mohammedan was the biggest thing in the country, and 46,000 people watched us win the South Asian title in 2003. Then cricket took over.
“Then there’s the governance side, with FIFA sanctioning federation officials in 2023 and 2024 over falsified documents. And on top of all that, the talent abroad isn’t being found.”
The documentary also highlights the disparity between participation and representation among British South Asians.
Although they account for around 6% of grassroots football in England, they make up less than half a per cent of professional players.
When the current Premier League season began, there was not a single British South Asian player in the competition, underlining the barriers facing a community with a significant interest in the game.
Could the Bangladeshi Diaspora provide the Missing Players?
One of the documentary’s central arguments is that Bangladesh’s footballing future could depend on looking beyond its borders.
There are 644,900 Bangladeshis living in England and Wales, according to the 2021 Census. That is more than the entire population of Cape Verde, which has around 550,000 people and qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
For Javed, the comparison raises an obvious question about why Bangladesh has not been able to identify and develop the footballing talent within its own population and overseas communities.
The film puts together a potential Bangladesh starting 11 featuring players from Dhaka, Finland, Virginia, Denmark, Canada, Japan and London, alongside a bench of other eligible footballers living abroad.
Javed believes the country’s failure to identify eligible players has been a significant missed opportunity, particularly when other national teams have successfully drawn on their overseas communities.
He pointed to Morocco’s run to the 2022 World Cup semi-finals, when 14 of their 26-man squad were born abroad, as evidence of what can be achieved.
The filmmaker’s interest in the subject is also deeply personal. His mother was born in Bangladesh, his family originates from Sylhet, and he grew up playing football in England alongside other British-Bangladeshi children.
Recalling the excitement surrounding Hamza Choudhury’s emergence in the Premier League, Javed said:
“When Hamza Choudhury was playing in the Premier League, I was super gassed, and the family group chat had one message on repeat: ‘He’s Bengali’.
“One Bengali in the Premier League and we treated it like a miracle. This film is for that group chat.
“My mum was born in Bangladesh, and she still supports Portugal. I’d love to give her a reason not to.”
However, identifying players is only part of the challenge. The documentary highlights practical obstacles that can discourage diaspora footballers from representing Bangladesh, including players having to fund their own trials in Dhaka, delayed wages and lengthy passport processes.
Javed added: “A lot of it puts diaspora players off before they even start: players paying their own way to trials in Dhaka, wages not turning up, passports taking months.
“Hamza wasn’t found by a trial; his family spent years asking him. That shouldn’t be the system.”
What needs to Change for Bangladesh to Reach a World Cup?
Rather than ending with a critique of the country’s footballing administration, The Lost XI puts forward five recommendations aimed at making the national set-up more professional and accessible.
Javed’s proposals include paying every player on time, establishing permanent scouting networks in London and New York, and creating a dedicated passport service to speed up eligibility checks for overseas-born players.
He also wants Bangladesh’s major Dhaka clubs to establish proper football academies and for every national team match to be broadcast on YouTube with English commentary.
The proposals address both the structural problems within the domestic game and the need to engage more effectively with the diaspora.
The financial incentive is also considerable.
According to the documentary, qualifying for a World Cup is worth at least $10.5 million to a national football federation, substantially more than the BFF’s estimated annual budget of Tk 61.8 crore.
Javed believes the first step towards improvement is straightforward: players must be treated professionally and paid what they are owed.
At the end of the film, he outlines what he would do if he were running Bangladesh football:
“The first one’s simple: pay every player, every month, on time. The rest is in the film, and I’d love people to watch it and tell me what I’ve missed.”
The documentary is released with a full Bangla audio track, alongside Bangla and English subtitles, making it accessible to audiences both in Bangladesh and across the international diaspora.
With the SAFF Championship taking place in Dhaka, Javed hopes the film will encourage football administrators, clubs and supporters to reconsider how the national team identifies and develops players.
“If the film gets even a few people in the federation, the clubs or the diaspora thinking, ‘We need to go and find these players’, that’s a win.
“And if it makes one kid in an academy or a Sunday league somewhere think, ‘I could play for Bangladesh’, even better.”
Ultimately, The Lost XI makes a compelling case that Bangladesh’s absence from the World Cup is not simply a question of population, passion or potential.
The challenge is building a footballing structure capable of identifying talent, supporting players and giving them a reason to represent their country.
As Javed puts it: “Bangladesh doesn’t have a talent problem. It has a finding problem.”
Watch The Lost XI
