Nepal fixtures a lessson for posterity
The resumption of football activities in Bangladesh has become reality amid the new normal with the arrival of the Nepal national football team on Thursday and the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) is apparently seeing the two FIFA international friendlies against the Himalayan nation as a dress rehearsal for organising domestic competitions as well as next year's World Cup Qualifiers.
With only a week before the first friendly on November 13 at the Bangabandhu National Stadium, the BFF has all but taken all initiatives to hold both matches in a safe environment, maintaining Covid-19 safety guidelines.
As per FIFA guidelines, a member association can hold internationals in the presence of full-capacity crowds, limited spectators or without spectators amid the pandemic. The BFF has decided to allow spectators on a limited scale -- one-third of the 24,000-capacity BNS, to watch the matches.
The spectators however must wear masks, maintain distance while sitting and have body temperatures scanned before entering the stadium, while the authority has to disinfect practice venues and the stadium before the match.
"It is a big challenge for us to ensure everything in line with the Covid-19 guidelines because we haven't had any experience of hosting matches amid the pandemic," BFF competition manager Zaber Bin Taher Ansari told The Daily Star yesterday.
"Other than the health aspect, the rest will proceed as usual," Ansari said. "We are taking the arrangement of hosting Nepal friendlies as a dry run or rehearsal of the upcoming season and World Cup Qualifiers.
"As this will be the first time that we impose health restrictions during the match, we will be learning the barriers and limitations of implementing those on the spectators, players and officials. After gathering the knowledge, I think we will be able to hold our domestic matches and World Cup Qualifiers more efficiently," opined Ansari, who has been involved with the arrangement of all international matches in Bangladesh for a long time.
The sitting arrangement and maintaining social distance in the gallery is going to be the big challenge for the BFF as there are no permanent seats at the BNS at the moment.
"Our spectators are not habituated to maintaining all these while watching matches from the gallery and it will be hard for us to keep them in the loop of health guidelines during matches. We have split the Western and Eastern galleries into four parts to control it as there will be some volunteers with loud speakers to make the spectators aware. They even may take help from police to maintain disciplines in the gallery," said Ansari, adding that employees from the city corporation will disinfect the practice venue and the stadium before the match.
Ansari also said there will be no handshaking among players, officials and guests before and after the match while the number of ball-boys will be only six instead of 12. But they will have to wear masks and sanitise their hands frequently and the reserve-bench players don't need to maintain social distance in the dugout but they must wear the masks.
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