"At least 20 professional foreign footballers should play in the Uzbek championship. Young foreign players should be brought in," the president of the Uzbek Football Federation (UFF), Mirabror Usmonov, has said at a meeting with journalists, the Regnum news agency reported on 19 September.

"I promise you that these kinds of foreign players will be in squads of our clubs," Mirabror Usmonov added.

The report quoted him as saying that the Uzbek president had instructed the UFF to work on attracting skillful foreign players to the national championship, and that the government would give money needed to buy such footballers.

On 3 September the Uzbek website UzReport reported that "world football star Rivaldo" had signed a one-year deal with Uzbekistan’s AFC (Asian Football Confederation) Champions League quarter-finalists Bunyodkor (formerly Quruvchi).

In a separate report, the Russian news agency Interfax said the same day Rivaldo - the best footballer of 1999 and world champion as a member of the Brazilian national team in 2002 - had left Greek Super League club AEK Athens to get 5m euros from the Uzbek club. "I would like to apologize to AEK fans, but one cannot refuse such a proposal. I have taken a difficult decision. Something very pleasant has been waiting for me at the end of my career and I cannot reject it," the news agency quoted 36-year-old Rivaldo as saying.

The club has also attempted to contract a striker of the Cameroon national football team and the Barcelona club, Samuel Eto’o. "The Bunyodkor club offered me 25m dollars for playing in the club for two or three months. It was a very interesting offer. I hope you will understand me, a striker of the Cameroon national team should play in a top club of a top league. Therefore, I did not accept the offer," on its 4 September edition, the Nur newspaper quoted Samuel Eto’o as saying.

The Brazilian football legend, Zico, is expected in Tashkent for talks with the management of Bunyodkor to coach the club, after its former coach, Mirjalol Qosimov, has been appointed the chief coach of the Uzbek national team, the Russian website Championat.ru reported on 20 September.

The Bunyodkor football club has been rated the best in the Asian continent, the Uzbek pro-government news agency website Press-uz.info reported on 5 September. "As a result of great attention being paid by Uzbek President Islom Karimov to sports, in particular, to the development of football, our country’s sportsmen are achieving great victories on the international arena," it said. In a new rating announced by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), the Bunyodkor club was recognized as the best football club in Asia, the website concluded.