Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) president Kazi Salahuddin yesterday said the eight-team franchise-based football tournament proposed by the Celebrity Management Group (CMG) is far away from being realised.
Responding to the much-talked about issue at his office yesterday, the BFF boss said it is too early to say something. “I talked with Bhaswar [Goswami, CMG executive director] for only four minutes. It’s just a proposal. It’s too early to say something final about it. All I can say is we will have an in-depth look before arriving to a final decision.”
CMG also proposed attaching Argentine football legend Diego Maradona with the tournament and said they will be managing the event that includes selling the TV rights and arranging sponsors among other things. The CMG also showed interest about tagging in leading cine stars and celebrities with the tournament with a view to make it truly entertaining. Local event management firm Showbiz Entertainment will assist CMG in this aspect.
BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag also echoed the same tune of his president. “We have to see the feasibility. Finance is the major subject of the issue. We will have to find the level of benefits or whether it’s going to be a profitable concern for us. We cannot compare our football arena with India as they have a good number of large-scale investors. We do not have that. Following a thorough investigation and with the approval of the football federation’s executive committee can we provide a final verdict. At the moment we are just discussing.”
CMG was the event manager of the Argentina-Nigeria Fifa international friendly in Dhaka on September, 2011. They also took a venture of hosting a tri-nation tournament involving Bangladesh-India-Pakistan in London in 2012 but the project did not see light due to a lack of sponsors.
