Sports Reporter: BFF Elite Academy, Azampur FC Uttara and Youngmen’s Fakirerpool Club earned automatic qualification to the main round of the Independence Cup after eight clubs from the Bangladesh Championship League (BCL) expressed their inability to travel outside Dhaka to take part in the season’s curtain-raising tournament due to financial crisis.
Four more outfits — Little Friends Club, Bangladesh Air Force, Bangladesh Navy and Bangladesh Army — will, however, have to play the qualification round, set to begin on November 5. Following the qualifiers, the 16-team final round, including 11 auto-qualifying outfits from the Bangladesh Premier League, will commence on November 13.
The participants of the qualifying round were decided through a lottery held at the BFF House yesterday.
“We wanted to hold the qualification round with 12 BCL teams and three services teams but some BCL clubs expressed their inability to play the qualification round outside Dhaka, citing financial constraints. So we are going to hold the qualification round with seven teams from which five teams will qualify for the main competition,” said professional league management committee convenor Ataur Rahman Bhuiyan Manik at a press briefing at the BFF House yesterday.
Little Friends and Air Force will play the first qualifier on November 5 while Navy will take on Army the following day. The winners of the fixtures will enter the main competition.
Besides, the draw of the main competition was also held yesterday at the BFF house. Defending champions Abahani and runners-up Bashundhara Kings were placed in different groups with little chances of the two giants facing each other before the final, set to be played on December 5 at the Shaheed Dhirendranath Datta Stadium in Cumilla.
Alongside the venue of the final, Birshreshtha Flight Lt Matiur Rahman Stadium in Munshiganj and Sheikh Fazlul Haque Mani Stadium in Gopalganj will host a total of 34 matches. Venues for the fixtures were distributed through lottery.
