Bangladesh Premier League set to resume on Friday

Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) confirmed today that the Bangladesh Premier League is set to resume on Friday as was previously decided amid the government's decision to extend ongoing lockdown to another week to contain spread of coronavirus.

Although the local game's governing body wanted to use all four venues -- Dhaka, Gazipur, Cumilla and Munshiganj -- to complete three to four rounds of matches before the Eid-ul-Fitr vacation, they backtracked on that decision and decided to hold the matches only in Dhaka at Bangabandhu National Stadium.

"We have kept our decision to start the second phase of Bangladesh Premier League on April 30 intact, though the lockdown has been increased to another week," said BFF senior vice president Abdus Salam Murshedy MP at his office in Panthapath today.

"As there are some protocols to maintain during the lockdown, we have brought a bit of change to our previous decision and will hold the matches at a single venue of Bangabandhu National Stadium instead of all four premier league venues, during the period of lockdown," Murshedy, who is also the chairman of the professional football league committee said.

He also added that each day may feature two to three matches as they have to adjust for the AFC Cup play-off fixture of Abahani, who are supposed to play the match against Club Eagles of Maldives in between May 5 to 7 in Dhaka.

Replying to an enquiry, Murshedy said, "Health is our first priority and we have made it mandatory for eveyone involved with the matches to have Covid-19 tests and the teams have to submit their Covid-19 reports within 72 hours before the start of their respective matches."

The senior vice president also informed that they have already written to the Dhaka Police commissioner to allow the teams to travel to BNS from their respective clubs.

Bangladesh Premier League was suspended for one month due to the mid-term transfer window following the closure of the first-phase of the league on March 7. The second phase was scheduled to start from April 9 but the lockdown kept halted the resumption of the league on the previously scheduled date.