The Bangabandhu Gold Cup International Football Tournament gets a new kick off date as the much-awaited event is now scheduled from January 29, revealed Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) president Kazi Salahuddin yesterday.
The tournament also secured live telecast on Fox Sports Asia who bought the international broadcasting rights from Channel 9, the local TV channel who holds the exclusive TV and sponsorship rights of the tournament, informed managing director of Channel 9 Enayetur Rahman.
The BFF boss Salahuddin returned home on Saturday night after attending the Extraordinary Congress of Asian Football Confederation (AFC) in Australia where he spoke to the representatives of the participating countries and confirmed the date.
The details of the tournament, however, are expected to be revealed within this week through a press conference. The BFF president is scheduled to sit in a meeting with Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith today noon.
“Bangabandhu Gold Cup will begin on January 29. I will talk to the Finance Minister tomorrow (Monday) at 1.30pm about the tournament. The details of the event and the logo unveiling will be finalised in the next two or three days,” said Salahuddin at his office yesterday.
The sixth team, Sri Lanka, of the tournament was finalised during the Congress and after talking to AFC president Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, Salahuddin received the final nod regarding the participation of Bahrain which enabled to fix the date.
Bahrain, one of the six participants, will send their Olympic team as their senior team is taking part in the Asia Cup and the U-23 team is engaged in the Gulf Cup at their home which will conclude on January 26.
“Bahrain is the country of AFC president and he said they want to play in the tournament. After the end of their games they will be available from January 29. The other countries also agreed to play on the date,” explained Salahuddin why they had to change the previous date of January 16-27.
Enayetur Rahman was also in the BFF president’s office room while Salahuddin was talking to the media. He informed that they have finalised a deal with Fox Sports Asia for the whole tournament who will bring their own production to telecast the matches in Asia.
