BFF willing to bring Messi's Argentina to Bangladesh this year

The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) president Kazi Salahuddin said the board is exploring options to have Lionel Messi's Argentina play a friendly game in Bangladesh this year. 

"This [news] is not something concrete. Nothing has been finalised yet. But we are trying. We are trying to bring them in June-July this year," Salahuddin told reporters at the BFF house today.

The last time Messi and Argentina visited Bangladesh was on September 6 in 2011 for a friendly against Nigeria at the Bangabandhu National Stadium. 

Argentina are now the World Champions after Messi led the Albiceleste to their third global title by beating France in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar in December last year. 

Salahuddin confirmed that the BFF has already approached the reigning World Champions and gotten a positive response. 

"We got a positive response from them [Argentina Football Association]. They said they are interested," Salahuddin said, adding that Argentina's opposition for the possible friendly game has yet not been fixed. 

BFF had initially thought about inviting PSG to Bangladesh for a friendly. But Salahuddin informed they retracted from this because of a 'problem'. 

"We thought about PSG but there is a problem. We would have had to bring PSG in during the window for pre-season friendlies. And after May 2023, Messi will run out of his contract with PSG. So, our aim is to have Messi visit Bangladesh. If he runs out of contract with PSG then what's the point of inviting PSG?" the former Bangladesh footballer said. 

BFF had to splurge around three to four million USD the last time it hosted Argentina for an invitational friendly. It will also be another costly move for BFF as Salahuddin estimated the cost to be around 10 million USD, which is roughly around 100 crore taka.