Chittagong Abahani and Saif Sporting Club will play the opener of the Walton Independence Cup Football when the match will take place at the Bangabandhu National Stadium at 3:30pm followed by Brothers Union and Farashganj will meet each other in the second match at 5:45pam at the same venue.

Meanwhile, the logo unveiling ceremony of the tournament was held yesterday the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) Bhaban when some of the participant teams’ official and coaches also put across their opinion about their expectations with the competition.

The tournament will take place in group leg with 12 teams, who played in the Saif Power Battery Bangladesh Premier League will compete splitting into four groups and expected to complete by January 26 while the quarterfinals expected to begin after a one day interval but the schedule of the two matches of the quarterfinal and the final matches to be decided, as the preliminary stage of the AFC Cup matches will be held in between the time.   

The semi-final matches will be held on January 5 and 6. In a press meet after the logo unveiling ceremony, Abdus Salam Murshedi, senior vice-president of the BFF, FM Iqbal bin Anwar, operation director of the Walton, the title sponsors of the tournament, who also attended along with Sattayjit Das Rupu executive member and general secretary of the BFF.

Rupu also manager of the Abahani Limited said, “It is a great opportunity for the local players to prove them as  no foreign players will be allowed in the tournament.”

“We want to proceed on match by match at least first target to move into the quarterfinal. Actually it would be very helpful for us, as we have AFC Cup competition in March.”

“It is an opportunity for Abahani also to win a treble, as we have won the Fed Cup and the league, in fact, the boys will have good preparation before the AFC assignment.”

Julfikar Mahmud Mintu, who replaced Saiful Bari Titu, as head coach of Chittagong Abahani said, “My players are exhausted, they have been on play since January 2017 with the preparation of the Sheikh Kamal Gold Cup tournament.”

“First of all we will have to get rid of the fatigues, players will have to get back their fitness and avoiding all of these downbeats, will have to boost up them to get their best,” said Mintu, former national booter.