The new football season will begin with the Federation Cup Football in the first week of December after completing the inter-club players transfer formalities in October-November next.

Most of the club representatives, which earlier demanded to play the coming season without any foreign footballer, finally changed their stance and opined for allowing maximum four foreign booters for a team including one from Asia and all of them will be entitled to play in a match for the team. 

The decision was taken at a meeting of the professional league committee on Thursday with committee Chairman Abdus Salam Murshedy in the chair.

In the last season, all the participating teams were entitled to recruit maximum five foreign players and four of them were allowed to play in a match.

Also Read- All domestic football leagues postponed

The meeting also decided that all footballers played in the last league (2019-2020) will have to play again in their old clubs in the coming season as the last league was abandoned due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. But a player can change his team with mutual understanding with the club.

All the clubs agreed to pay hundred percent of the players’ remuneration for the last (abandoned) season as per contract, but they will pay only 25 percent of the last the years’ amount for the coming season (2020-2021).

The ensuing league matches will be held in three to four venues in Dhaka. Mymensingh, Comilla and Gopalganj will be the probable venues apart from Dhaka.

Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is still waiting for Sri Lanka’s positive response about the proposed three-match Test series, chairman of media and communication committee of BCB Jalal Younus said Thursday. 

This series was originally scheduled for July-August this year. But due to Covid-19 pandemic, the involved parties rescheduled it for October-November. 

Bangladesh national team is due to fly to Sri Lanka on September 27 but the regulation of Sri Lanka to prevent the spread of the virus put a big question before this plan.

As per Sri Lanka’s regulation, everyone who enters the island nation will have to maintain a strict 14-day quarantine. But BCB asked Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to trim this period to seven days. SLC said they have no problem with this but the health authority of Sri Lanka refused the proposal putting the series into jeopardy. 

“We’re yet to get a response from SLC. But as we understand, this matter is beyond SLC’s control. A special task force oversees the Covid-19 situation in Sri Lanka. If they allow us to tour the country with a shorter quarantine period, they’ll inform SLC and then they’ll tell us about it. What we have asked them is to ensure a shorter quarantine period and allow us to train during that period,” Jalal Younus told the media. 

This week, Nazmul Hassan, the BCB president told the media that if Sri Lanka stays firm on their current regulation of a mandatory 14-day quarantine, Bangladesh might not continue with the tour.

At this stage, Namal Rajapaksa, the cabinet minister of youth affairs and sports of Sri Lanka, urged SLC to negotiate with the health department so that they find a way to ease the restriction for the Tigers and make the series happens. 

SLC also came up with a new idea of two-country quarantine. As per this idea, Bangladesh team can stay isolated for seven days in Bangladesh before flying to Sri Lanka and undergo another seven-days isolation after reaching the island nation. 

But this idea seems nearly impossible. Neither the health department of Sri Lanka nor the BCB has so far said anything about the two-country quarantine idea. 

Despite the uncertainty over the tour, BCB is preparing the squad according to the previous plan. But the ongoing individual and small group training programme is on hold for three days. It will resume on September 20. Jalal Younus said the Bangladesh team is already prepared well for this tour.

“We’re well prepared for the tour. If they come up with a positive response, we can fly to Sri Lanka within a week. But if they delay more than a couple of days, it will make our preparation tough, and in that case, we have to think anew,” Jalal said.

Also read: Sri Lanka tour not possible now: BCB chief

Members of Bangladesh national cricket team will undergo another Covid-19 test on Friday.

It will be their second out of four tests which will be conducted ahead of the proposed tour of Sri Lanka for a three-match Test series.

The first test was done 10 days ago. If the tour goes ahead as planned, the cricketers will have to undergo two more tests. 

In the first test, Saif Hassan, the left-handed opener tested positive along with the head of physical training Nicholas Lee who tested negative later. Saif again tested positive this week.

Also Read- Sri Lanka tour: Cricketers to undergo Covid-19 test

Sources close to the selection committee of Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) said 27 players have been given government orders (GO) to travel to Sri Lanka. 

The series, however, is still in jeopardy as Sri Lankan health authorities are reluctant to ease quarantine restriction for the Tigers which BCB had asked for earlier. 

As per Sri Lanka’s regulation, everyone who enters the island nation will have to maintain a strict 14-day quarantine. But BCB asked Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to reduce this period to seven days. SLC said they have no problem with this but the health authorities refused the proposal of SLC, throwing the series into jeopardy. 

This week, BCB President Nazmul Hassan told the media that if Sri Lanka stays firm on their current regulation of a mandatory 14-day quarantine, Bangladesh might not continue with the tour. 

Also Read- Test series: Bangladesh may tour Sri Lanka in October

At this stage, Namal Rajapaksa, the cabinet minister of youth affairs and sports of Sri Lanka, urged SLC to negotiate with the health department so that they find a way to ease the restriction and make the series happens. 

SLC also came up with a new idea of two-country quarantine. Tigers can stay isolated for seven days in Bangladesh before flying to Sri Lanka and complete another seven-day isolation after reaching the island nation. 

But this idea seems to be nearly impossible one. Neither the health department of Sri Lanka nor BCB have so far said anything about the idea. 

Despite uncertainty over the tour, BCB is preparing the squad as it was planned earlier. But the ongoing individual and small group training programme is on hold for three days. It will resume on September 20.

Bangladesh remained at their previous 187th position with 914 points among 210 countries in the FIFA Coca-Cola World Ranking published on Thursday.

Among the eight South Asian countries, Bangladesh was placed 5th after India (109th), Afghanistan (149th), the Maldives (155th) and Nepal (170th).

India topped the list among the South Asian countries despite losing a point.

But Bangladesh is ahead of Bhutan (189th), Pakistan (200th) and Sri Lanka (206th).

Top four countries of the world – Belguim (1st), world champions France (2nd), Brazil (3rd) and England (4th) – maintained their previous rankings.

Portugal advanced to the 5th slot in the current world ranking adding two more points to their credit, Spain was placed 7th adding one more point while Argentina is in the 9th place with their previous points.

The last FIFA World Ranking was published in last April.

Read Also 

FIFA, AFC matches postponed till 2021

Former Bangladesh cricketer, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) member and councillor ASM Faruque died on Wednesday in Dhaka after a cardiac arrest. He was 75.

In a condolence letter, BCB has extended deepest sympathies to the family of ASM Faruque.

Faruque was one of Bangladesh team members when Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) visited Bangladesh as the first touring team after the independence  in 1971. As an administrator, Faruque played various roles with the BCB.

In the World Cup 2003 and in the ICC U-19 World Cup 2016, Faruque was the team manager of Bangladesh team. In 2007, he led the game development committee of BCB, and he was a member of the technical committee formed by current BCB boss Nazmul Hassan.

Faruque was also a selector of Asian side during the Afro-Asia Cup 2007. Bangladesh’s all-time best cricketers- Mohammad Rafique, Masrhafe Bin Mortaza, Abdur Razzak, Mohammad Ashraful and Tamim Iqbal- featured in that event of Afro-Asia Cup.