BPL to continue at seven venues
The Bangladesh Football Federation yesterday decided to continue hosting the Bangladesh Premier League at seven venues, backtracking from its plan of holding the top-tier professional league at a single venue in the capital in the wake of coronavirus outbreak.
BFF president Kazi Salahuddin had, on Wednesday, told reporters that the game's local governing body was planning to host all the league matches in Dhaka due to the outbreak of coronavirus, a plan which was opposed by a number of clubs of the Bangladesh Premier League subsequently.
After a meeting of the professional football league committee (PFLC) in presence of the club representatives at the BFF House yesterday, BFF's senior vice-president Abdus Salam Murshedy informed that the meeting unanimously approved of going through with the league at seven venues as both the BFF and the clubs felt that 'the overall situation in the country regarding coronavirus is still quite good.'
Bangladesh have so far had three cases of the deadly virus and two of them have already recovered, according to a statement by the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR).
"The members of the PFLC have unanimously decided that the league should go ahead until further notice as per a revised fixture (to be prepared within a couple of days. Unless the situation deteriorates, the matches will be played at all venues. The decision was taken in light of discussions with the clubs," said Murshedy, also the chairman of the PFLC.
Ahead of the meeting, several of the top clubs had voiced their opposition to the plan of holding the league at a single venue following Salahuddin's statement. However, Murshedy said that the BFF boss was only speaking of a probable plan in the face of uncertainty and questions from stakeholders. The BFF's senior vice-president also said that the clubs would try to discourage fan attendance at venues while shunning formalities such as hand-shakes.
Following the last matches of the sixth round today in Dhaka and Nilphamari, the league was scheduled to go into a three-week break due to the national team's proposed camp for World Cup qualifiers. But now that those qualifying fixtures have been postponed as per suggestions from the AFC and FIFA, the BFF wants to reschedule fixtures into this timeslot. The revised fixtures will be revealed, after further discussion with the clubs, within a couple of days and the seventh round of matches are expected to get underway on March 19, the BFF officials informed.
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