Kochi: A football World Cup of any age category is a once-in-a- lifetime opportunity, especially if you are an Indian. However, typical desi bureaucratic lethargy can torpedo any such a dream as Kochi has come to realise after it was announced on Monday that the city won’t partake in the semifinals or the final of the Fifa Under-17 World Cup that will be held this October. The Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata will host the final on October 28 and the semifinals have been awarded to Navi Mumbai and Guwahati. Meanwhile, Mumbai along with New Delhi take a share of the fixtures on the opening day, October 6. That leaves Kochi and Goa, the two remaining outsiders, accommodated to gobble up the leftover from a five-course meal.
Kochi has been allocated eight out of the total 52 matches in the competition, including a quarterfinal on October 22 and a round-of-16 tie four days prior to that. Just how did Kochi, one of the most popular football venues for the showpiece event on the basis of its acceptance during the three seasons of the Indian Super League, comprising the 2016 ISL final, fall out of favour with Fifa? A nationally functioning local organising committee, upon whose suggestions Fifa had allocated specific matches to various venues, has revealed that Kochi’s failure to land a marquee match was down to the laid-back attitude of its local administration, also comprising the Greater Cochin Development Authority that owns the Jawaharlal Nehru international stadium.
Joy Bhattacharjya, project director, LOC, told this newspaper that Kochi’s issues with the main venue did not go unnoticed by the Fifa. He points out that though the passion of football fans in Kerala is unquestionable, there are “concerns about the development of infrastructure and closing of shops at the stadium” that deterred Fifa from considering Kochi for the big matches. The writing on the wall was clear as Kochi had failed to address, among many other issues, the problem of shops on the outside of the stadium building that are occupied by about 120 commercial establishments, including a KSEB section office. Fifa had identified the issue as “unacceptable” and urged for those to be temporarily shut down until the tournament was over.
Following the final inspection of the venue and adjacent training sites on Friday, Fifa head of tournaments Jaime Yarza had criticised the local administration for failing to deal with the issue of shops that was raised two-and-a-half years ago. “It is a pity that you don’t have a stadium that complies (with the requirements) … basically nothing has been completed,” Yarza had said. He went on to blame the government for its “lack of knowledge of the situation”. Meanwhile, state government’s nodal officer A.P.M. Mohammed Hanish sounded least bothered. “The most prepared venues have got the semifinals and final. We expected a semifinal, but we’re happy with a quarter,” he said.
