A budget of Taka 150m for the Bangabandhu Gold Cup was approved by the executive committee of Bangladesh Football Federation yesterday. The approval came in an emergency meeting called for the purpose by the executive committee after the respective 10 sub-committees submitted their budget for the tournament that kicks off in a week.
Meanwhile, Novo Air became the local airlines partner for the 11-day tournament to be played in Dhaka and Sylhet.
“The sub-committees submitted their own budget and the total stands to Taka 15 crores to successfully wrap up the tournament. It includes branding, hotel accommodation of the players of six teams, transport, prize money and everything,” said BFF senior vice president Abdus Salam Murshedy yesterday.
Initial BFF planned to hold the international meet-up inside the Tk60m received from main official sponsor Channel 9. However, vast interest in sponsoring the tournament and the rising public interest made the federation think bigger.
According to Murshedy the BFF so far received an amount of Tk 90-100m from different sponsors and official partners and they hope to get the rest of the amount soon. He further informed the federation’s plan of selling at least 200,000 tickets during the tournament which will give a return of Tk20m.
The budget for the opening/closing ceremony is Tk5m which will include cultural programmes and fireworks. Meanwhile, the other budgets are media and accreditation (Tk5m), souvenir (Tk1m), gate management & sitting arrangement (Tk3m), referees (Tk3.5m) and grounds (Tk2.5m).
As part of promotion the BFF will hold rallies across the 64 districts in the country on January 27.