The much-hyped forthcoming Bangabandhu Gold Cup is all set to be classified as a Tier 1 Fifa competition, courtesy of the participation of the Sri Lankan national team.
Bahrain and Singapore had already confirmed to send their Olympic team while the respective football governing body of Thailand and Malaysia yesterday sent their approval of participating in the six-nation international tournament with their Under-23 side. That leaves only Bangladesh and Sri Lanka playing with their national team and as per the law, one international match is enough to make a tournament fall under Tier 1 competition.
Meanwhile, Fifa and Asian Football Confederation (Afc) have also answered to the Bangladesh Football Federation’s query through email and assured to officially authorise the tournament as Tier 1 soon.
According to Fifa regulations of governing international matches (Article 7.3), “A competition that contains at least one Tier 1 international match shall be classified as a Tier 1 competition.” Hosts Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are placed in Group A and therefore their encounter is enough to label the tournament as Tier 1. “We asked them (Fifa and Afc) whether the tournament will be under Tier 1 category. It will be Tier 1 competition and they said they will authorise it soon,” said BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag yesterday.
