The 2021 Independence Cup also known as Riviera Independence Cup 2021 due to the sponsorship from Riviera. It was the 11th edition of the Independence Cup, the main domestic annual top tier clubs football tournament organized by Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF). The fifteen participants were competed this edition in the tournament.[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
The draw ceremony of the tournament was held on 23 November 2021 15:00 at 3rd floors of BFF house Motijheel, Dhaka, Bangladesh. There are fifteen teams were divided into four groups. Top two team's from each group will through Knockout stage.[14]
Group winners and runners-up advance to the Knockout-stage
Tiebreakers
Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings.
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams are tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams are still tied, all head-to-head criteria above are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Penalty shoot-out if only two teams were tied and they met in the last round of the group;
Disciplinary points (yellow card = 1 point, red card as a result of two yellow cards = 3 points, direct red card = 3 points, yellow card followed by direct red card = 4 points);
Drawing of lots.
All times listed below are local, BST (UTC+06:00).
In the knockout stages, if a match finished goalless at the end of normal playing time, extra time would have been played (two periods of 15 minutes each) and followed, if necessary, by a penalty shoot-out to determine the winner.