Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The Argentina football team will arrive in the capital Dhaka in the morning of September 5 to play the international friendly against Nigeria the next day.
The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) on Friday confirmed fears that Argentina would not be arriving on September 3 as originally scheduled and as such would not be able to attend the open practice session that was supposed to be held at the Fatullah Stadium on September 4.
But the BFF are confident that they have still managed to salvage an occasion that is rapidly going downhill, by convincing Argentina to keep their prior appointments of an open practice session and an official dinner.
Anwarul Huq Helal, chairman of the Argentina-Nigeria international friendly organising committee, told reporters that the visitors did not like the Fatullah stadium that was offered to them by Bangladesh for practice.
And the team were also reluctant to train at the match venue, the Bangabandhu National Stadium, so early before the September 6 friendly.
Nigeria were all but confirmed to land at 8:30am on Monday, but the BFF struggled a lot to confirm the Argentina team’s arrival time despite them having already rocked the neighbouring city Kolkata for another friendly held on Friday.
Meanwhile, the tickets for the match day have been half sold-out, according to BFF officials. The rest of the tickets will be sold as the game approaches, they expected.
The designated branches of IFIC Bank will remain open from today (Saturday) to facilitate the ticket sale while tickets will also be available at outlets of KFC, Nandos, Helvetia, Ruposhi Bangla, Meena Bazaar.
Dhaka-based Independent Television hold the sole rights for the television broadcast of the game and they will be beaming live coverage of the game for the local audience from the venue on the day.
BBN/SSR/AD-03Sept11-11:29 am (BST)