Bangladesh U20

The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) was officially founded on 15 July 1972. Md. Yousuf Ali, the former Minister for Education and Cultural Affairs, established the federation; he also served as its first president. The general secretary under Ali was Abul Hashem of Wari Club.

The BFF quickly sought international legitimacy, gaining membership in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in 1974, and becoming a member of FIFA in 1976. It later became one of the founding members of the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) in 1997.

Through the FIFA Goal Project, the federation secured the necessary resources to construct a dedicated headquarters. On 10 April 2005, AFC President Mohammed bin Hammam inaugurated the BFF Bhaban, the Federation's FIFA-financed office in Motijheel, Dhaka.

International football

In 1973, the federation sent the first national team to the Merdeka Cup in Malaysia. In 1978, Dhaka hosted the 1978 AFC Youth Championship, the first major football tournament to take place in the country. In 1980, Bangladesh made its first and only appearance to date in the AFC Asian Cup. The nation's best results came at South Asian level where it won the 2003 SAFF Gold Cup and were gold medalists at the 1999 South Asian Games. Under the federation's management, the Bangladesh women's national team won the SAFF Women's Championship in 2022 and 2024, marking a shift in the federation's focus toward gender inclusivity and grassroots development.

Domestic football

The BFF immediately took over the Dhaka Football League, which had existed since at least 1911, from the EPSF. In 1993, the federation restructured the domestic football pyramid by creating the Dhaka Premier Division League as the top-tier competition, replacing the old First Division, which in turn became the second-tier. It inaugurated the Independence Cup in 1972, which became the first football competition held after the independence of Bangladesh.

From 1975 to 1982, the BFF operated the Aga Khan Gold Cup, an invitational club cup competition, often regarded as the predecessor of the AFC Champions League. It was shut down following the introduction of the President's Gold Cup in 1981, which was also replaced by the Bangabandhu Cup in 1996.

The BFF launched the Federation Cup in 1980, a knockout club cup tournament that grew to be the country's top national cup competition.

By the early 2000s, the BFF faced growing pressure from AFC to modernize its league structure, which was largely centered around Dhaka clubs. In response to the AFC's Vision Asia initiative, the federation began to change the process of transitioning from a regional amateur setup to a national system. It first introduced the National League in 2000, which, although it functioned outside the domestic league pyramid, granted clubs eligibility to participate in AFC club competitions, a right that the Premier Division clubs of the Dhaka Football League lost following the turn of the century.

The transition concluded in 2007 with the launch of the B. League, currently the Bangladesh Football League, which replaced the old Dhaka-focused league with a professional national competition. In 2012, the BFF launched the second-tier professional national league, the Bangladesh Championship League, which saw the regional Dhaka Football League make up the third, fourth, and fifth tiers of the country's football league pyramid.

In 2009, it launched the Super Cup tournament, with a prize money of Tk1 million. In 2013, the prize money for winning the competition was Tk10 million. In the inaugural competition, Mohammedan SC beat arch-rivals Abahani Limited Dhaka.