Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) inked a five-year deal worth Tk60m per annum with Channel 9 as the satellite TV station became the title sponsors of the Bangabandhu Gold Cup International Football while they will also hold the advertising and marketing rights of the tournament.
Other than the sponsorship money each year, BFF will also bag the gate money from the six-team tournament to be played across two cities – Dhaka and Sylhet. Channel 9, however, asked BFF to increase the number of the teams to eight in the tournament that is expected to kick off in the third week of January.
Apart from the hosts, Bahrain, Qatar, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Laos and Pakistan are the other nations interested in participating in the tournament, but the confirmed participants, however, were not revealed in the press conference at BFF House yesterday where Channel 9 handed over a cheque of Tk10m to the BFF as advance money.
Since taking the chair of the BFF president in 2009, Kazi Salahuddin was desperate to host an international tournament and finally his plan is on the verge of implementation. “The reality is these kind of tournaments are almost extinct in modern football as the players and the teams are too busy with the leagues and their confederation commitments. We are happy to see that a number of countries have consented to play the tournament, I may say that it is better late than never, we have chosen strong teams so that our national team gets benefited playing against the superior teams, I thank Channel 9 for the support,” said the BFF supremo.
Enayetur Rahman Bappi, the managing director of Channel 9, echoed Salahuddin and said, “We stepped up to revive the glory of football. There are risks involved and its ratio is 50:50. If everything goes right we will be able to transmit the tournament to 50 countries, though the money input may not arrive as expected in the initial edition I have every reason to believe that we will be making the tournament a big one in the near future, the business module of football and the tournament is positive.”
The Channel 9 MD also informed of thinking about spreading the tournament outside the borders of Bangladesh. Enayetur said they received positive response from other countries and held Malaysia as an example where almost two millions Bangladeshis reside. He also assured that the broadcast will be of international standard and the production will comprise overseas experienced personnels.
