The Bangladesh Football Federation is finally set to host the Bangabandhu International Gold Cup in the third week of January 2015. Channel 9, the satellite television, became the official title and TV right holders for the six-team event and agreed to provide a purse of Tk60m.
The Bangabandhu Gold Cup was last held in 1999 as the BFF failed to organise the tournament since then despite considering to revive the event from 2009. Though the football body was not able to organise any international tournament, they did host the AFC and Saff Championship meets.
The latest information regarding the Bangabandhu Cup was revealed to the press after an executive committee meeting of the federation yesterday. Presided over by the BFF president Kazi Salahuddin, the meeting discussed the pros and cons of the proposed event that had been going on for the last four years.
However, Salahuddin looked rather hopeful this time as he said, “All the required preparations has been completed but we can’t declare it officially because we have to take the permission to use the name of Bangabandhu.”
“I think that’s the only clearance we are yet to get. We will go to the prime ministers office in a day or two, take the clearance and then officially declare the details,” he added.
BFF invited five teams – Malaysia, Bahrain, Laos, Singapore and Thailand – for the tournament who have already provided verbal assurance of participating. Observing the high tempo of the audience in the recent international friendlies outside the capital, the BFF plans to expand the tournament out of Dhaka with Sylhet likely to be the second venue.
Abdus Salam Murshedy, the senior vice president of BFF, described the financial deal with Channel 9, who was also the official broadcaster of the Bangladesh Premier League cricket. “They (Channel 9) will provide us a purse of Tk60m per year for the deal that will be signed for five years. The title sponsorship and the TV rights will belong to them, we will also avail the gate money,” said Salam.
“We are yet to go through the approximate expenditures and since we are thinking to host the tournament outside the capital we have many things under consideration. if all goes well the number of team might increase to eight,” Salam added.
Meanwhile it was learnt, Channel 9 expressed interest in organising a franchise based football league similar to the recently launched Indian Super League, after the Bangabandhu Cup.