Union sports minister Vijay Goel at the VYBK | Image: XtraTime[/caption]
Kolkata: The Union Sports Minister Vijay Goel on Tuesday has assured the football fans of the country about hosting a successful FIFA U-17 World Cup. The marquee event will be staged from 6th to 28th October in this year. The matches will be played over six different cities spread all across the country. They involve Delhi, Goa, Kolkata, Navi-Mumbai, Kochi and Guwahati.
Mr. Goel is on a visit to all the 6 cities that will be hosting the FIFA U-17 World Cup.
Mr. Goel said that he wanted to meet with the State Sports ministers of West Bengal, Aroop Biswas and Laxmi Ratan Shukla and also gift them a football. But the ministers didn’t turn up today. The turn up of the eminent footballers of the city who were supposed to meet with the Union Minister was very poor.
Unlike Kochi, the Union Minister is quite impressed with the progress of Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Krirangan Stadium. He said “I want to go to all the six cities to see all the preparations myself. I have visited Kochi where I found the preparations were not up to the mark. They have given me the deadline of 15th of May to complete all the preparations of FIFA U-17 World Cup at Kochi.
Today I visited Swami Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Krirangan and I am quite satisfied about the preparations of the World Cup at the Kolkata stadium.”
Apart from inspecting the Salt Lake Stadium which is the venue of the final, he also visited the practice facilities at SAI complex. There is still some work that needs to be completed at the SAI. According to Mr. Goel “on inspecting the SAI compound training centers, I found out that the work is still being done on the floodlights and changing. The authorities have told us they will complete the work in the next 15-20 days. All the work will be completed by 30th May. I will monitor everything from time to time from Delhi and if needed will visit again.”
Mr. Goel will next visit Navi- Mumbai followed by a visit to Guwahati.
He assured that the Central Government will provide full support to make the event a grand success “Our Prime Minister is taking personal interest in this World Cup FIFA football and I hope with the cooperation of all the stakeholders including the states we will definitely organize these tournaments very well. Budget from Union Government for world cup -- 200 CR earmarked and if needed it can be increased.”
On being asked about the Delhi pollution problem, the Sports Minister said “we want all the matches to be played in Delhi before Diwali”
The Central Government is taking every possible step to ensure a maximum turnout across all the venues. Talking about the Government’s initiative, Mr. Goel said “in the FIFA meetings we have decided about the issue regarding the crowds. The hype will be so much that the stadiums will fall short.
In schools, we will try and bring the kids to the stadiums to watch games. We have done a similar programme in Goa. We will cover 15,000 schools to promote this event.”
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