A 90-minute football final in Bangladesh is finally set to end after 5 days, making it the longest match in football history since official record-keeping began. The Bangladesh Football Federation now holds the record for the world’s longest match, breaking the previous one set by the Ukrainian top league.
The Federation Cup final began on April 22 at the Mymensingh District Stadium but couldn’t be completed due to a Kalbaisakhi storm and poor lighting. The game was first stopped because of the storm, and then called off when lighting conditions worsened. By that time, the match had already gone into extra time after the regular 90 minutes.
The remaining 15 minutes of the final will be played today at 3:30 pm. This extended timeline means the Bangladesh Federation Cup final will surpass the 2023 match between Dinpro-1 and FC Aloksandriya, which lasted 4 hours and 36 minutes — the longest match since penalty shootouts were introduced.
About 34 minutes into the match, an air siren sounded due to a possible Russian airstrike, and the game had to stop. All the players ran to the dressing rooms for safety. When the danger passed and the game finally ended, 4 hours and 36 minutes had gone by.
Before this, the longest football match played without breaks lasted 3 hours and 23 minutes. That game happened in 1946 between Stockport County and Doncaster Rovers and ended 2-2. Since there were no penalty shootouts back then, play continued after 120 minutes until one team scored. This match helped lead to the creation of the “golden goal” rule in football.
There was also a friendly match in Wales in 2019 that lasted 169 hours, but it wasn’t official, and players were allowed to rest and sleep during it. On the other hand, Bangladesh’s Federation Cup final was an official match. It began at 2:45 p.m. on April 22 and ended on April 29.
According to the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) rules, if a game is stopped for special reasons, it should resume from the same point. If a match is paused for more than 30 minutes due to poor lighting, the rest is played another day, as decided by the Federation or League Committee.
Because of this rule, Bangladesh ended up creating a world record for the longest official football match. In the past, matches in the country were sometimes stopped due to crowd trouble, especially during the football boom of the 70s and 80s. But those games were usually restarted from the beginning. This time, the match just continued, making history.
