India gears up for FIFA U-17 WC as infrastructure nears completion

02/17/2017

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The FIFA U-17 World Cup, to be held in India later this year, will not face any pre-tournament hiccups as the infrastructure will be ready well ahead, informed the Tournament Director. To be held in six different cities, the tournament will see most the stadia ready by the end of April.

Unlike most other sports events in India, the U-17 FIFA World Cup will not see any delays in the completion of infrastructure. The organising committee for the tournament, which will be held from October 6 to 28 this year, have said that the six venues in Delhi, Kolkata, Guwahati, Margao, Kochi and Navi Mumbai, will be ready well in time for the tournament.

A total of 24 teams would participate in the event, which is being billed as the one that will revolutionalise football in the country. Javier Ceppi, the tournament director of the local organising committee (LoC), told PTI in an interview that most of the work would be completed by the end of April. “The FIFA U-17 World Cup is a little over seven months from now but I can say that we have a lot of things in place. The renovation work and all other major civil works at all the six venues will be complete or nearly complete by April end. Other major renovation works relating to sewage, electrical fitting, media areas, dressing rooms etc., there will be readiness during next inspection by FIFA team in March end. Work is almost completed in those areas,” he said.

Ceppi was appointed to the job in November 2014, almost a year after India won the hosting rights, and just about a month before FIFA's first team came for an inspection. The six venues for the tournament were finalised when the team last came for an inspection in October last year.

“It has been a long process in the last two and half years. In India, it takes time to start things but once things start it kind of picks its own pace and in terms of implementation I always say that India is a very good country when it comes to implementation. Some venues are more advanced in their preparations.

"India is different from many other countries. It’s first time that U-17 World Cup will have six venues with six different languages and different cultures. Dealing with government officials always have certain complications. The complication here is that you have to deal with many more governments. Everything you do, you have to do six times, with six different state governments. But the road has been good so far, the best is that the stakeholders, particularly the state governments, have understood their responsibility,” said Ceppi.

According to the agreements with the state governments, the stadia will be handed over to the LoC a fortnight before the beginning of the tournament.

“July 7 is the draw ceremony for the tournament. And, under the agreement, we (the LOC) will take over the stadia and all the facilities two weeks or 15 days before the tournament. That is the deadline and then they become our responsibility,” the Chilean said.

Ceppi, who has previously been involved in planning FIFA tournaments in UAE and Chile, said that he was happy that the seemingly difficult job was done without many problems.

“Getting four training grounds in every city was a challenge initially. Fortunately, the stakeholders understood that training sites are as important as actual playing stadia. In a number of places they had been built from scratch. In the beginning, it was difficult but at this point in time we don’t have any problem. All the four cities will have international standard training grounds with floodlights as required by FIFA. This (training venues) is where a lot of work is happening currently.

"The only venue where all the training grounds were ready from the beginning is in Goa because they had it from before. We are using three from the grounds used in Lusofonia Games in 2014 and another training ground used during the from AFC U-16 Championships last year,” he said.

He also said that the budget for organising the tournament was nowhere near as high as people would imagine but was manageable without an adverse impact on the standard of facilities.

“This is a tournament with an extremely tight budget. The budget is nowhere near what people think. But at the same time, I think it is a realistic budget without frills and thrills. This forces us to have a plan in advance. When you have a plan in the last minute, your cost will go all over the place. It has been spent in a smart way and it has been done in a planned way to avoid cost over runs,” he said.

He also revealed some of the details of the budget and its sources.

“It (the budget) is not a huge amount as compared to other sporting events in India. But we were sure that with the existing facilities, with a certain amount of renovations we can do it. They (the facilities) would be upto standards. The most amount of fund is spent on training grounds which I see is an opportunity to develop Indian football in future. The Central government has sanctioned Rs 95 crore as central assistance for states to develop infrastructure plus for overlays. 70 per cent of the Rs 95 crore goes to states and 30 percent for use on overlays. Apart from that, the government has sanctioned Rs 25 crore as contingency fund in case there are any unforeseen issues."

He says that although the main source of revenue for the event would be the sales of tickets, they wouldn't make the tickets too pricey as they want fans to come to the matches in large numbers. He also says there will be early bird discounts for the most eager fans.

“Unlike other leagues, our main aim of ticketing is not revenue making. The price of tickets will be much lower than that of a movie ticket and less than other sporting events. We want to make it affordable for all. Also, we want to reward people who come in early. We will give discounts at the beginning and once we get closer to the tournament the prices will be increased,” he added.

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