The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) have almost completed all the preparations for successfully hosting the 4th Bangabandhu Gold Cup International Football tournament scheduled to begin on Friday (January 8) with a lone match at the Shams-Ul Huda Stadium in Jessore.In this regards, a press conference was held today at the BFF conference room to disclose the latest development and entire preparation of BFF for the tournament.Security and traffic management sub-committee chairman and BFF executive committee’s member Sheikh M Maruf Hasan said the entrance of first phase of the stadiums of both Dhaka and Jessore venues will be covered under CC camera and modern security devices to ensure a full-proof security of the stadiums. He said a tight security step will also be provided to the participating foreign teams at their arrival in airport, hotel and stadium during their stay in Dhaka and Jessore.All the stadium’s shops of Bangabandhu National Stadium (BNS), the another venue of the tournament, will remain close two hours before starting of each match and no shop will be allowed to open on the date of semifinals and the final of the tournament. BFF general secretary Abu Nayeem Sohag said considering the capacity of the stadium the gate and ticketing committee decided to flow 21,805 for BNS and 12,000 tickets for Jessore venue for each match. The ticket for Jessore match goes to sell from today (Thursday).Apart from host Bangladesh national football team and Bangladesh Olympic team, six more foreign teams Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Nepal, Bahrain, the Maldives and Cambodia, split into two groups, will compete in the tournament.Bangladesh pitted in group A along with Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, while the group B consist with Bahrain, the Maldives Cambodia and Bangladesh Olympic.The tournament will get underway with a match between Sri Lanka and host Bangladesh that kicks off at 2:45 pm.State-owned Bangladesh Television and private satellite channel will telecast live the matches while Bangladesh Betar will prove running commentary.Tournament organizing committee’s member secretary and senior vice president of BFF Abdus Salam Murshedy and gate management and sitting arrangement sub committee’s chairman Sheikh M Aslam were also present on the occasion.
