The expatriate spectators had played a significant role behind the good performance of Bangladesh national football team against Sri Lanka and India in the ongoing SAFF Championship but the men in red and green may not have the same volume of support from the expatriate spectators in their next match due to the unavailability of tickets.

The expatriates alleged that the authority concerned, allocated only 200 tickets for the expatriate Bangladeshis citing that the Maldivians will have priority in getting hold of tickets for Maldives and Bangladesh match, slated to be played on Thursday.

"I queued at 9:30am for tickets in a bid to watch Thursday's Bangladesh-Maldives match but when I reached the counter, they said that the tickets for Bangladesh were sold out," alleged expatriate Zaman Bhuiyan, who suspected that Football Association of Maldives do not want to allow Bangladeshi expatriate supporters to back the Bangladesh team in the match against Maldives.

"There were hardly many Bangladeshi people in front of me in the queue but we were told that 200 tickets allotted for Bangladeshi expatriates were sold out," said another expatriate, alleging that those tickets may be sold covertly later on. 

South Asian Football Federation secretary Anwarul Haque Helal informed that eight percent of total tickets is kept for the away team and that he was going to communicate with the FA of Maldives about the crisis of tickets for the away team.

Meanwhile, Football Association of Maldives has been releasing nearly half the tickets of the 9000-capacity National Football Stadium due to the Covid-19 crisis and in that case Bangladesh expatriates are supposed to get 400 to 500 tickets.

Mohammad Nazmul Hassan, High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Maldives, said, "I have been informed about the crisis of tickets this morning by the expatriates and I have already talked to Maldives Youth ministry and BFF president Kazi Salahuddin to take some necessary steps in this regard."

Bangladesh goalkeeper Anisur Rahman Zico thanked the expatriate spectators for their wholehearted support from the gallery but they said his side will not be scared of performing well in front of Maldivians.    

"I want to thank the expatriate supporters because they are supporting us wholeheartedly from the stands. We will now play in front of Maldivians spectators in the next match. We have also played against India in front of 70 thousands Indian home crowd at Salt Lake in Kolkata. So we are not scared to play in front of huge Maldivians crowd. We are confident that if we can perform our natural show on the ground, then we can achieve something good against Maldives."