BFF refuses Oman’s proposal
Bangladesh have refused to play the rest of World Cup Qualifiers in a centralized venue after Oman offered the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) a proposition to play the rest of the three home matches in Oman.
The refusal from the local game's governing body came today after a meeting of the BFF national teams committee as Oman sent the proposal a few days ago requesting Bangladesh to play their three home matches in Qatar on March 24, 27 and 30 during the FIFA Window.
"We have been offered by a federation [Oman] to play our all three matches in their country because some of the countries had offered to play their respective matches aboard. You know only Bangladesh have already declared its venue for World Cup Qualifying matches. We thanked that country for their offer but we are interested in playing our all three home matches in Bangladesh as per the schedule," said BFF vice president and national teams committee chairman Kazi Nabil Ahmed.
The joint qualifiers for World Cup and Asian Cup had been suspended since March following the coronavirus pandemic. The Qualifiers are supposed to resume in next March with Bangladesh playing their Group E home matches against India, Afghanistan and Oman in late March. However, nothing has been finalized yet.
Bangladesh have already played their away match against Qatar on December 4 amid the pandemic and are bottom of the five-team group with one point from five matches.
BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Shohag however informed that Oman offered to all other countries of Group E and the countries like India, Afghanistan and Qatar have also given their nod to play in a centralized venue in March.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh national team's head coach Jamie Day is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka tomorrow after spending more than one month in England since Bangladesh's last international match against Qatar on December 4. Jamie and assistant coach Stuart Watkiss are also supposed to watch the matches of the professional football league.
Comments