Clubs agree to neutral venue for AFC Cup matches

All the three participating countries -Bangladesh, India and the Maldives - of South Asia agreed to play the remaining home and away basis matches of AFC Cup-2020 at centralize venue or neutral venue after Asian Football Confederation (AFC) gave them proposal to play the tournament.

In this regard, an online meeting with the participating club's and federation officials and AFC was held today to discuss how to arrange the remaining matches or how to complete the AFC Cup, which was postponed in March last due to coronavirus pandemic.

Three countries of South Asian, after discussing with AFC, almost agreed to arrange orginal format of AFC Cup, which is home and away basis matches, in this situation…

rather the AFC gave a proposal to the participating countries to play a remaining matches of the AFC Cup at centralize or neutral venue and the participating clubs gave a positive feedback to AFC in this regards, the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) general secretary Abu Nayeem Sohag disclosed it onthe online meeting through a video message today (Friday).

"The AFC may give an opportunity to all regarding to arrange the matches on behalf of Bashundhara Kings, we carried their feedback, as Bashundhara Kings don't want to go to India to play match due to visa complication they faced in the past two years as well as COVID-19 situation," Sohag continued.

"After taking the feedback from the participating teams, AFC will raise the feedbacks in their competition's committee's meeting and we hope to get a full guideline from AFC in this regards by two or three weeks. The target of AFC is clear to complete the group phase matches by September or October and their main intention of AFC is to finish the 2020 AFC Cup by this year as per their calendar," Sohag added.

The AFC also confirmed that they would open another window before the restart of AFC Cup so that the respective participating teams can complete their registration formality without any hindrance, Sohag concluded.