Amid the drama over venues, the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) is all set to get underway today at two separate venues outside Dhaka.

Title holders Bashundhara Kings will take on newcomers Swadhinata Krira Sangha and runners-up Sheikh Jamal DC will play against Uttar Baridhara Club.

Following the unavailability of Bangabandhu National Stadium and participating teams' unwillingness to play on sub-standard turf at the Birshreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium in Kamalapur, the selection drama over the venues for the professional football league drew concerning attention as the professional league management committee kept changing their decision time and again during the past week.

As the Bangladesh Premier League begins today, the participating clubs are all busy with their training. Abahani players had their training session at the club ground yesterday, with an eye on a treble after having won the Independence Cup and the Federation Cup at the start of the season. (Top) Bashundhara Kings, meanwhile, will look to deny the Sky Blues and make it a hattrick of league titles. Photo: Star

Although six venues were allocated to play the home-and-away basis matches initially, the sudden surge of coronavirus forced the management to change the initial plan to three venues without a home ground concept.

The committee proceeded to cancel Kings' home ground Bashundhara Kings Arena just less than 48 hours before the league set to kick off, leaving only two venues to host the league matches. In addition, the Bangladesh Archery Federation also protested against the use of Tongi stadium without consulting them.

Apart from the dispute over the venues, the 14th edition of the professional football league is expected to be much more competitive, largely due to the presence of four to five equal-strength sides while the lightweights have already shown their prowess in the recently-concluded Independence Cup and Federation Cup.

Nevertheless, two-time professional league champions Kings will be looking forward to taking the hat-trick league title home after failing to defend the Independence Cup and missing in action during the Federation Cup.

There is no question over the ability of Kings, who established their sole dominance in the domestic circuit by winning five consecutive trophies in the last three seasons but they have a few injury concerns before the start of the league.

Kings' Spanish coach Oscar Bruzon said, "It's a matter of time [when BPL is ready to start] and opportunity that Kings will be contesting for the 3rd consecutive BPL title and the AFC Cup final stage. We are still recovering some of our players from the injuries caused by the terrible turf condition and bad planned game fixtures at Kamalapur."

"Nowadays, all our efforts are on bringing back the desired performance levels. We want to keep our status of being a different and attractive team to watch and ultimately stick to our positive winning record.

However, six-time professional league champions Abahani will pose a great threat to Kings and the Sky Blues have already proved they are no less strong than Kings by beating them 3-0 in the final of Independence Cup, their first win over Kings in the last three years.

Abahani then kept their winning momentum intact in the Federation Cup to win back-to-back titles and have set their sights on a rare treble in a season, which was achieved by Sheikh Russel KC in the 2012-13 season.

Even though it looks like a two-way battle between Kings and Abahani is on the table, however, it would not be surprising if big-budget Sheikh Russel, Saif SC and Sheikh Jamal DC join in the race as none of them could show their real strength in the two preceding tournaments.  

However, the lightweights like Mohammedan SC, Rahmatganj MFS, Swadhinata KS and Bangladesh Police FC will still be teams to beat as they showed their strength in season's two tournaments as the league are going to be shorter compared to the last season and the teams will get less margin for errors.

Furthermore, the league is vital for national head coach Javier Cabrera, who would be keenly observing each and every league match to find out a probable national squad for FIFA friendly matches in March.