GOAT Tour: Hyderabad, Mumbai gigs point a finger at Kolkata again

It’s the day after the Lionel Messi fiasco at the Salt Lake Stadium – with Mumbai hosting a seamless third leg of the GOAT Tour of India after Hyderabad last evening. The greatest irony of it all is that the Salt Lake Stadium, the largest football stadium of the country with even a truncated capacity of 65,000, lies in darkness and in ruins.

 The bar posts on both sides are without nets, hundreds of uprooted fibre glass seat covers, hordes of advertising hoardings in tatters are a grim reminder of the mayhem unleashed by a frustrated and unruly crowd on Saturday noon. More than 24 hours after the momentary lapse of reason which ruined the reputation of the football city in front of an international media, the stadium authorities have hinted at an approximate figure of Rs two crores plus as damages.

  ‘’It’s still too early to arrive at a ballpark figure but the tragic part is only eight years back, a complete makeover of the stadium was done ahead of the 2017 FIFA Under-17 World Cup at a cost of Rs 126 crores,’’ a senior official of the Salt Lake Stadium said on conditions of anonymity.

The onus of repairing the damages is likely to come back to the state government – in contrast to the makeover ahead of the 2017 fare when the state government received a hefty grant from FIFA to make the venue compliant with their requirements. The makeover had transformed the old concrete structure into a modern, fan-friendly venue with blue bucket seats, new floodlights, renovated washrooms, elevators, improved drainage and a new Press Box.

 The uncertainty over the fate of Indian Super League (ISL), where Salt Lake Stadium acts as the home venue of city giants: Mohun Bagan Super Giant and East Bengal, gives the venue some leeway to get back into shape. However, it could be a race against time if the league finally takes off sometime in January – this being the only venue confirming to the standards.

 Meanwhile, Satadru Dutta, the underfire promoter of the GOAT Tour had some more bad news waiting for him as his stay at the police custody has been extended to 14 days. Dutta was arrested from Kolkata airport when he was about to travel to Hyderabad alongwith Messi’s entourage soon after the outrage on Saturday afternoon and was refused an anticipatory bail at a special session at Bidhannagar Court on a weekend.

While Dutta’s arrest is being seen in some quarters as a move to calm the frayed nerves of the spectators, lot of whom want a refund, there are several unanswered questions on the fiasco. The smooth conduct of Messi’s subsequent tour programmes on-the-trot reflected enough planning on part of the event managers – though the sense of discipline and order among fans and the assembled VIPs at both Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium and Wankhede Stadium, respectively, complemented them.

Is this what was lacking among the ministers and families of political heavyweights seeking selfies with the icon in Kolkata? Could the police have done better or showed wisdom to tread softly in order to prevent a Chinnaswamy Stadium-like stampede earlier this year?

 Let’s wait-and-watch for the answers!