The Bangabandhu National Football Championship (), previously known as the Sher-e-Bangla National Football Championship or the Sher-e-Bangla Cup, is a district-level national

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

tournament in

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

, contested by

districts A district is a type of administrative division that in some countries is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions ...

and government institutions of the country. The tournament is run under the supervision of the

Bangladesh Football Federation Bangladesh Football Federation (, ''Bānglādesh fūṭbôl fēḍārēshôn'') is the governing body that administers the sport of association football in Bangladesh. It is in charge of running the country's men's and women's national teams, ...

(BFF).

History

The tournament was introduced by the East Pakistan Sports Federation in 1963 in memory of

A. K. Fazlul Huq Abul Kasem Fazlul Huq (26 October 1873 – 27 April 1962), popularly known as Sher-e-Bangla, was a Bengalis, Bengali lawyer and politician who served as the first and longest Prime Minister of Bengal, prime minister of Bengal during the Britis ...

, who was popularly known as Sher-e-Bangla, upon the request of Abbas Mirza, former captain of Calcutta Mohammedan. Initially, the tournament would see First Division League clubs, university, and secondary education board teams compete. Following the

independence of Bangladesh The independence of Bangladesh was Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence, declared from Pakistan on 26 March 1971, which is now celebrated as Independence Day (Bangladesh), Independence Day. The Bangladesh Liberation War started on 26 March ...

, the tournament was reintroduced in 1973 as an inter-district national football competition contested by the district teams and government institutions under the

(BFF). On 10 January 2020, the BFF decided to revive the National Championship after a gap of 13 years, celebrating the 100th birth anniversary of

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), also known by the honorific Bangabandhu, was a Bangladeshi politician, revolutionary, statesman and activist who was the founding president of Bangladesh. As the leader of Bangl ...

. Upon its resumption, it was renamed the Bangabandhu National Football Championship.

Format

Along with 64 districts football teams, three service teams, six public universities, five education boards, and Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishthan will participate in the tournament. The participant

have been divided into eight zones named Padma, Meghna, Jamuna, Shitalakshya, Brahmaputra, Surma, Chitra and Buriganga. Each zone consists of eight teams, except Surma, which contains seven teams. There will be knockout matches in every zone, which will be played on a home and away basis. In the first round, a pair of teams from every zone will play each other, which will decide four winners. In the second round, the four winners in each zone will play the zonal semifinal. In the third round, the semi-final winners will face each other in the zonal final. The champion from each zone will qualify for the final round. Teams representing education boards, universities, and the services teams—a total of 15 teams—are divided in four groups in Sheba zone. The teams of this zone will play on a round-robin basis. Champion and runners-up of Sheba zone will join eight zonal champions in the final round.

Sponsorship

Results

References

External links

Sher-e-Bangla Cup
at

RSSSF The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (''RSSSF'') is an international organisation dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around ...

{{Bangladesh football seasons Football cup competitions in Bangladesh