Argentina's Bangladesh trip cancelled due to lack of a proper venue
"Both parties (two federations) were on the verge of making an agreement. The renovation of our stadium (Bangabandhu National Stadium) is still going on. It is not possible to bring the world champions in this situation," Salahuddin told the media.
Lionel Messi's Argentina will not travel to Bangladesh to play a friendly game in June this year, the president of the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF), Kazi Salahuddin, has confirmed today.
He mentioned the lack of a proper venue as the reason for the failed attempt to bring Messi and Co to Bangladesh.
"Both parties (two federations) were on the verge of making an agreement. The renovation of our stadium (Bangabandhu National Stadium) is still going on. It is not possible to bring the world champions in this situation," Salahuddin told the media.
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"We tried to bring the world champion team to Bangladesh to play their first away match since the World Cup triumph. Argentina was also interested enough to come to Bangladesh. Sports Ministry and Sports Council are working on the stadium. They said they need more time to complete it."
The talks, which began in January, made progress but eventually got stalled. When BFF took the initiative in January, the stadium was still unprepared and it was difficult to get a full stadium by June.
The Argentine Football Association (AFA) was officially informed by FIFA last week that it is not possible to organise the friendly match in Bangladesh in June.
After being officially informed, the AFA did not say anything to BFF and there was no news about it in the Argentine media.
Messi and Argentina's most recent trip to Bangladesh took place on September 6, 2011, when they played Nigeria in a friendly at the Bangabandhu National Stadium. The BFF had to fork over three to four million USD to host that match.
