The new football season for the year 2020-21 will kick off in the first week of December with the curtain raiser Federation Cup, decided the professional football league committee of Bangladesh Football Federation Thursday.
The players are set to register with the same club of previous season, but transfer can happen through mutual understanding between club and player.
The registration window is likely to open next month, and the schedules will be finalized after the BFF election on October 3, informed the committee’s chairman, Abdus Salam Murshedy, who presided the meeting.
“After discussing with the clubs, we have decided to start the 2020-21 season in the first week of December through the Federation Cup,” Salam told the media.
Players to get 25% remuneration
The previous season of the Bangladesh Premier League was called off after completion of one-fifth fixtures.
Only the Federation Cup took place in its entirety while the Independence Cup was cancelled.
BFF sat with the clubs and players over the last one month to solve the payment issue.
It was decided in the meeting that the players will receive full payment of the annulled 2019-20 season, but their total wages for the 2020-21 season would be 25% of the previous contract.
The 25% percentage was proposed by the clubs in the last meeting, while the players demanded 50% payment of their previous contract for next season.
Players also proposed that those who were signed for Tk5 lakhs or less have will have to be paid fully as per the new contract, but no concrete decision was taken regarding this issue in the meeting.
The pending remuneration of last season will be paid partially.
The statement from BFF says, “Clubs will try to pay around 41%-45% pending remuneration to the respective players while signing for the upcoming 2020-21 season.”
Murshedy said the concerned club and player have to discuss among each other as to when to pay the rest.
Not much change in foreign quota
The number of registration of foreign quota got reduced from five to four from the previous season but like before, four foreign players can feature for each team during a game.
Most club representatives expressed desire to play without foreign players in the last meeting, but the scenario altered in less than a month when asked for written feedback.
“Most clubs opined for four foreign players for the upcoming football season and all four players would be eligible to play at the same time,” said the latest statement.
Reduction of venues
The committee decided to reduce the number of BPL venues from seven to maximum four and that too surrounding the capital city.
“It would be difficult to hold the league matches at seven places by following the health guidelines. Clubs proposed three venues, we thought of highest four venues, all near Dhaka,” explained Murshedy.
It was also proposed to shorten the duration of the league.
All proposals will be placed to the executive committee for ratification after the October 3 poll.