Leo didn't attend the dinner!
Most of the Argentine booters including Lionel Messi, Gonzalo Higuain, Di Maria and the whole of Nigerian football team skipped the official dinner Monday night, citing huge gathering at the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel.
The refusal of the Argentine booters to attend the official dinner left sponsors Beximco Group fuming that seemingly led to create a distance between Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) and the business conglomerate, who invited many high profile guests after taking away the responsibility from the game's governing body to host the dinner.
It has also been learnt that high-ups of Beximco demanded the BFF to show their agreements with the Argentina team and later they took all unsold tickets with them.
"The players were tired after training and the food-codes on the menu were also different. That's why they did not come to the dinner. Besides, presence of more guests was also a reason," said BFF senior vice-president Abdus Salam Murshedy, adding that the Argentine team also doesn't want the focus to be only on Messi.
"Nigeria finished their practice session at 9:30pm yesterday and then held a press briefing that made them late to the dinner," informed Murshedy.
However, liaison officer of the Argentine team Mohammad Abdul Gaffar told reporters that Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella along with four players joined the dinner.
The BFF had toiled hard to keep Argentina's original schedule intact, but they could only confirm the practice session and the official dinner, which was actually scheduled for Sunday, after BFF president Kazi Salahuddin's sudden visit to Kolkata on August 31 to convince Argentina team.
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