Budget Tk 11 crore, winners get Tk 20 lakh

With yesterday's announcement of the participating clubs for the inaugural Sheikh Kamal International Club Cup, the country is set to organise its second international football tournament, nine months after the six-nation Bangabandhu Gold Cup earlier this year.

The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) had so far organised all international tournaments in the country, but this time a professional football league club, Chittagong Abahani, has taken the initiative to organise the eight-club tournament. The tournament, scheduled to be held in the port city from October 20 to 30, will feature three local and five foreign clubs from the subcontinent and has an estimated budget of Tk 11 crore.

Apart from attracting crowds to football matches, the organisers also have the aim to highlight the enormous contributions of  Sheikh Kamal -- the founder of Dhaka Abahani and the eldest son of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman-- to sports.

“We have invited some of fan-based popular clubs as well as the league champions from inside and outside the country,” said Shamsul Haque Chowdhury, the member secretary of the tournament. “We want to hold this tournament every year in a bid to establish the name of Sheikh Kamal, who had a great contribution in sports in Bangladesh and across Asia.”

However, some famous clubs like Bangladesh league champions Sheikh Jamal, India league champions Mohun Bagan and Nepal league champions have refused to take part in the tournament for different reasons.

The participating teams -- De Spinghar Bazan Club of Afghanistan, East Bengal and Mohammedan of India, Karachi Electronic FC of Pakistan, Solid FC of Sri Lanka, Dhaka Abahani, Dhaka Mohammedan and Chittagong Abahani -- will get Tk 5 lakh each as participation money while champions and runners-up teams will be awarded US$ 25,000 (apx 20 lakh taka) and US$ 10,000 (apx 8 lakh taka) respectively. The winners of every match will also get cash awards, said the organisers during an official press briefing at the BFF House yesterday where BFF vice president Badal Roy, Chittagong Abahani president MA Latif MP and the club's football committee chairman Tarafder Ruhul Amin were present.