Bangabandhu Cup deferred

The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) yesterday deferred the Bangabandhu Gold Cup international football tournament by eight months till December, citing the unavailability of participating foreign teams during the earlier stated time in April.

The decision was made at an emergency meeting of the BFF executive committee, which had last month decided to hold its annual international competition in the third week of April with the participation of six nations.

"It is an international tournament featuring national teams and Olympic teams from different countries and we have talked to teams in the subcontinent and in other parts, but we could not assemble the teams together in the time we had earlier scheduled. Having analysed the conditions of the teams, the international commitments of the participating teams, and our preparations, it was decided to hold the Bangabandhu Gold Cup from December 18 to 31 in Sylhet and Dhaka," BFF senior vice president Abdus Salam Murshedy said after emerging from the meeting at the BFF House yesterday.

BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag had earlier informed that the participating teams were ready to take part, but the tournament could not be held due to financial constraints and lack of sponsors. However, Murshedy denied those claims and said there were no financial problems and that sponsors were ready for the start of the tournament.

Murshedy also believes that the Bangabandhu Gold Cup will be a good platform for preparing the national team ahead of the SAFF Championship, which is supposed to be held in Dhaka in January.

Murshedy added that they had talked with Maldives, Nepal, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Cambodia -- teams that will remain available in December -- and that the number of participating teams may be increased from six to eight as they have got more time to talk with other countries.