One more month to decide BPL future

Bangladesh Football Federation has decided to wait one more month to decide whether to carry out the ongoing Bangladesh Premier League after its professional league committee held a meeting with the club representatives through video conference Saturday.

The 13 clubs are divided over the future of the country’s top-flight league but most of them have demanded to cancel the league, admitted Abdus Salam Murshedy, the professional football league committee chairman.

“Most clubs agreed to cancel the league and relegation but we can’t take any final decision just now yet because I have rules to follow. We also need to observe the overall situation of the pandemic, and then we will propose it with clubs’ opinions in the upcoming executive committee meeting for final approval,” said Murshedy.

The BFF senior vice president also said they would observe the Covid-19 situation in the country until the last week of May before putting the proposal in the EC meeting.

Bashundhara Kings are in an unparalleled situation due to their Asian Football Confederation Cup involvement.

I think maybe going forward some clubs will struggle to survive in Bangladesh because of this and also we may see only Bangladesh players playing the premier league in the future which in a way will have benefit to local players.https://t.co/vgPtdgLC19#FOOTBALL #BANGLADESH #BFF

— Dhaka Tribune Sports (@Sport_DT) April 24, 2020

The holder asked the BFF for a concrete decision about the future of the league to deal with the contracts and payments of their highest-paid foreign players, including Daniel Colindres and Hernan Barcos. 

Imrul Hasan, the club president, said they have been paying almost full salary to their foreign signings since the postponement began.

Clubs are also bearing full expenditure and safety responsibilities of their foreign players who are locked down in Dhaka. 

Murshedy said more or less all clubs are trying to cut ties with the foreign players and waiting for the travel bans to be lifted.

Abahani Limited proposed to conclude the remaining fixtures with the local footballers only to reduce financial pressure off the clubs but according to Murshedy, most clubs disagreed with the proposal.

Some BPL clubs have appreciated the idea of going with the local footballers only when football returns from Covid-19 pandemic but they don’t think it would be possible to conclude the remaining games due to the short space of time before next season.https://t.co/W87wDCgiIw#BFF

— Dhaka Tribune Sports (@Sport_DT) April 23, 2020

Financially struggling Arambagh Krira Sangha were the first club to officially ask the BFF to call off the league due to the economic condition of the club which merely survive by donations. 

None of the clubs have any commercial revenue and paying the foreign players in pandemic situation is becoming a burden.

The meeting also discussed about providing financial support to the clubs through Fifa/AFC to reduce the extra pressure caused by the pandemic.

Murshedy said, “We also discussed about the foreign players and incentive packages for club from Fifa/Afc. We will inform them our overall situation and ask for incentive packages so that the clubs will be able to overcome their financial crisis.”