Bangladesh, Afghanistan tie in Qatar

Sports desk:  Bangladesh’s home match against Afghanistan in the FIFA World Cup 2022 and AFC Asian Cup 2023 joint qualifiers scheduled on March 25 has been deferred to June 3 and will now take place in Qatar, Asian Football Confederation confirmed on Friday.

Bangladesh was scheduled to host Afghanistan at the Sylhet Stadium for their Group E return-leg tie but Afghanistan refused to travel to Bangladesh, citing COVID-19 related travel restrictions.

Both Bangladesh and Afghanistan were waiting for FIFA-AFC’s final verdict, which came on Friday and it was in the latter’s favour.

‘Following a process of close consultation with Asia’s Member Associations, the Asian Football Confederation has today confirmed the centralised venues,’ AFC said in a media release on Friday.

Qatar will now host the remaining seven matches of the Group-E and Bangladesh will play against Afghanistan, India and Oman on June 3, 7 and 15 respectively.

Bangladesh are currently at the bottom of the five-team group with just one point after playing five out of their eight matches while the Asian champions Qatar are dominating the table with 16 points.

Bangladesh earned its lone point with a 1-1 draw against India while they lost against Afghanistan, Oman in away fixtures and were defeated by Qatar in both home and away fixtures.

Bangladesh played its lone home game in the qualifying round against Qatar on October 10, 2019 and were supposed to play the remaining three home games this year.

However, after the rescheduling of the Bangladesh-Afghan tie, the Bangladesh national team is cleared to take part in the tri-nation tournament in Nepal, scheduled to take place on March 23-29.

Bangladesh head coach Jamie Day on March 9 announced the 24-man Bangladesh squad for the Nepal tournament and his charges will start their camp today at the Bangabandhu National Stadium.

The Bangladesh team is scheduled to leave for Nepal on March 18.

Kyrgyzstan Under-23 team are the other team in Nepal’s tri-nation tournament where each team will play each other once in the league phase on March 23, 25 and 27 and the top two teams will play the final on March 29.