The upcoming FIFA World Cup – to be held in Russia from June 14 to July 15 – has brought some respite for the economy of Bangladesh, now cricket-crazy South Asian nation.
Although Bangladesh has managed to secure the 197th position in FIFA world rankings, 160 million Bangladeshi people are gearing up to cheer their ‘favourite’ teams during the greatest sporting event on the Earth. Keeping in mind the people’s enthusiasm, flag-makers in the South Asian country have started manufacturing national flags of Lionel Messi’s Argentina and Neymar’s Brazil.
Textile printer Kamal Hossain has expressed satisfaction over the increasing demand for national flags of the ‘big’ teams, saying that they are fully prepared for the roaring trade weeks ahead of the World Cup. At the same time, he admitted that no-one is interested in Bangladesh’s national flag. Hossain – the owner of some small, hot and sweaty workshops in Dhaka’s Merajnagar District – thanked his employees for working really hard to meet the demand.
Talking to the media a couple of days ago, Hossain stressed that he was facing difficulties in producing flags and pennants for the local market. “For the last two months, I have been working non-stop. There are days when I do not even get two hours of sleep,” said the 40-year-old, who was sitting in front of his screen-printing machine.

Hossain is not alone, as other textile printers in the Bangladeshi capital, too, are working hard ahead of the mega show of football. Some of them have converted their residences into makeshift printing and sewing plants to handle the pressure. Printers have revealed that majority of the Bangladeshi football fans are supporters of Argentina and Brazil. As a result, the demand for the national flags of these two Latin American countries is high.
Although Bangladesh enjoyed live telecast of World Cup matches in 1982 for the first time, people still remember the 1986 edition of the FIFA event, when Diego Maradona single-handedly won the trophy for Argentina (defeating West Germany 3-2 in the final). “The craze for Argentina is still going strong, Maradona is gone, but Messi is the new superstar,” insisted Faruq Mia, a flag hawker in Narayanganj District. According to Mia, Germany, Spain and Portugal are the other popular teams. Factory owner Selim Howlader, who sold more than 80,000 flags in 2014, plans to sell 2,000-2,500 big flags and 10,000 pennants per day ahead of the World Cup.
Meanwhile, economists have expressed hope that the FIFA World Cup will help the textile industry earn a huge amount of foreign currency as well, as Bangladesh is also supplying national flags of different football-playing nations to neighbouring countries. The economists also urged the government to provide some four million people working in Bangladesh’s 4,500 apparel factories with better facilities, saying that they provide billions of dollars worth of clothes to top global retailers. Currently, apparel factory workers in Bangladesh spend 18-20 hours in dangerous working environments for just USD 35-70 per month.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das