Premier League to start on Feb 13
The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) yesterday decided to start the 12th edition of top-tier professional league from February 13 to accommodate Abahani’s home and away matches of the AFC Cup qualifying playoffs.
The Bangladesh Premier League was originally scheduled to start from January 30, but the professional football league committee (PFLC), in an emergency meeting at the BFF house yesterday, decided that the league will kick off on February 13.
The meeting also decided to hold the 13-team league at seven venues across the country, with the Shaheed Dhirendranath Datta Stadium in Cumilla and MA Aziz Stadium in Chattogram added to last year’s roster while the Shaheed Bulu Stadium in Noakhali being scrapped.
“We sat with the participating clubs after the Bangabandhu Gold Cup. Since Abahani have AFC Cup commitment, the clubs reached consensus regarding deferment of the league, which will feature 13 clubs starting from February 13,” Abdus Salam Murshedy, the chairman of PFLC said after the meeting.
Abahani will play the home match of the prequalifying playoffs against Maziya S&RC of Maldives in Dhaka on February 5 before playing away to Male on February 12.
The meeting also decided to increase the number of registration of foreign players from four to five, allowing a foreign player to be replaced by another to accommodate all five in the match-squad.
Last year, the number of registration for foreign players was four.
This has been done, according to Murshedy, in face of demand from the clubs to give cushion in case of injuries to the foreign players.
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