Emdad Rahman: Members of the Inner London Football League held a press conference to talk about their work and vision for the future. The ILAFL was formed with 14 teams. 10 of the 14 teams used to play in the Asian Football League (AFL) but decided to leave and form their own league.
The league is currently chaired by Kamruz Zaman, who has been in the committee for 8 years. He is himself a player and continues to play in the league. He said: “Football is used as a vehicle to engage the local community and our youngsters into healthy activities and away from anti-social behaviour. By participating in our league, the members achieve basic principles of life, such as commitment, organisational skills, timekeeping, discipline and teamwork.”
The vice chair is Kobir Chowdhury and he is the only committee member who has been there from the beginning. He said: ““8 out of the 10 of the founding clubs still participate to this day and in the past 10 years over 50 clubs and over 4000 players have participated and enjoyed playing in the league. “Currently there are 30 teams in the league split into 3 divisions of 10 teams each. The league receives many applications each season but due to lack of facilities only a handful of teams are accepted each season.
“The highest number of teams accommodated was 36 – 2 teams in each division. The General Secretary is Abdul Mukith and the Treasurer is Foisol Uddin, both of whom, have been in the committee for 3 years. “The league is very open and diverse where the teams in the league are from several boroughs including Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney and Redbridge,” said Foisol. He added: “The players all range from the age of 16 to 48 and come from many different ethnic backgrounds. In all, the players represent over 50 different nationalities and 10 different boroughs.”
“In addition to the 3 divisions (Premier, 1st & 2nd Divisions), the league also runs the league Cup competition and the finalists this year are 2 very established and well known teams,” added Abdul Mukith.
“They are Bromley-by-Bow FC and Poplar Youth Organisation. The final will be held on the 4th of April 2001 at Mile End Stadium at 7:00pm. Bromley have won the Cup before but Poplar have not, although they were finalists at one time. Poplar, however, are the first 2nd Division team to get to the Cup final and it will be a very interesting and exciting final as the manager of Bromley used to be a long time manager of Poplar.” The main event, away from the football, is the ILAFL annual Awards Ceremony, which the management promise will be bigger and better than any other year. “We are expecting 500 people at this event, where we will honour and reward some 200 members for their efforts during this season. We have invited many distinguished guests, officers of the council, councillors, businesses and prominent members of the community”, said Kamruz.
“The purpose of the press conference today was to highlight the special milestone of the 10th anniversary of the League and to highlight our sponsors and long term supporters, Top Gear Claims, STIG Motors, The Royal Regency, Hunter & Bloomfield, who have been supporting us for 4 years now, and Sonargaon Restaurant, without whose support this event and the forthcoming events, especially the Awards Ceremony to be held on the 19th of May 2011 at The Royal Regency at 7:00pm, would not have been possible.” The press conference also highlighted the difficulties faced by the league in providing the services to the community and to galvanise support amongst the wider community.