DHAKA, July 8, 2021 (BSS)- The remaining matches of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) Football will resume from Wednesday (July 14) at two separate venues -- Bangabandhu National Stadium (BNS) and Fortis Football Club’s ground -- in the city.

Apart from BPL, the Bangladesh Championship League (BCL) Football, which was earlier postponed, will also resume at Birshreshtha Shaheed Sepoy Mohammad Mostafa Kamal Stadium in the city’s Kamalapur.

The decision has been taken in a Professional Football League Committee’s (PFLC) sub-committee’s general meeting held today with Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) senior vice president and PFLC’S chairman Abdus Salam Murshedy, MP, in the chair.

Representatives of thirteen participating clubs of BPL were also present in the meeting.

After the meeting, Murshedy informed the pressmen that after discussing with the participating clubs of BPL, the clubs agreed to play the league from Wednesday.

“In the meeting, discussion was held with the professional league as the league is being currently held only at BNS …… we had to postpone the BPL for few days because the ground was not ready to play any match due to heavy downpour … we earlier resumed the league with four venues across the country but subsequently we had to reduce the venues and resumed the league with BNS when the national team returned from Qatar,” said Murshedy.

Though the BNS is ready to play the match right now but the ground is not in a position to host any matches once after hosting the two matches on a day during the rainy season. So we suggested the participating clubs of BPL to play their matches on Astroturf but the clubs did not give their consent.

In this case, it’s not possible to go back to the predefined venues outside of Dhaka to play the league at this moment. Finally after discussing with the clubs the clubs agreed to play match at the Fortis football Club ground, which have all international facility, Murshedy said.
In the meeting, decision has also been taken to make mandatory the COVID-19 test for the participating players and officials before each match of BPL and BCL. The BFF is ready to provide any kind of cooperation if needed in this regard, he added.

The PLFC’s chairman informed that after discussing with the clubs  they have reached this conclusion that the league would be halted for only three days due to upcoming  Eid-ul-Azha festival so that the clubs can finish the league as early as possible as the BNS would be handed over for renovation in mid August.

Asked how it’ll be possible to resume the leagues if the ongoing lockdown is not lifted on July 14, Murshedy said we have discussed about it in the meeting and it was seemed to us that the lockdown may be relaxed after July 14 due to Eid-ul-Azha, one of the biggest religious festivals of the Muslim.

Earlier, on July 2 last, BFF postponed the BPL and BCL due to continuous rainfall in the capital and unplayable condition of the field. The BFF also considered the weather forecast while making the decision.

The BFF also postponed the women’s football League and Third Division Football up to July 7 due to inclement weather and countrywide strict lockdown.