THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The south zone qualifying rounds of the prestigious 71st Santosh Trophy national football championship is all set to kick off at the EMS Corporation Stadium in Kozhikode this Thursday.
Eight teams including hosts Kerala, a strong Karnataka, and debutants Lakshadweep will light up the tournament as they vie in two groups of four for the two spots available for qualification from the South zone.
But in an ideal scenario, it would have been Thiruvananthapuram and not Kozhikode that hosted the tournament.
Having awarded it to the city, the All India Football Federation was forced to move the event out as the proposed venue was not in a “good condition”.
The venue in question is the Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium located in the heart of the city. Owned by the Kerala Police and renovated for the 35th National Games, one would expect the stadium to be in top condition. But that is far from the truth.
“An AIFF technical committee inspected the venue last month and deemed it unfit to host the matches. That is how we lost the opportunity to host the tournament,” said Thiruvananthapuram District Football Association secretary S Geevarghese.
According to AIFF officials, the stadium lacked any proper dressing rooms for players or match officials and the playing surface at the ground was also deemed unfit.
This is the same grass surface that was relaid prior to the National Games with floodlights and synthetic athletics track at a cost of Rs 8 crore.
“The grass has dried up due to lack of proper maintenance while the police are more interested in renting out the space available in the stadium for marriages, meetings and exhibition rather than creating better facilities for sportspersons,” said Geevarghese.
However, Gopi Mohan, administrative manager of the stadium, said that dressing rooms could have been temporarily arranged for Santosh Trophy. “We have an auditorium, dining hall and three halls which can be partitioned into rooms,” he said adding that the grass was damaged “due to kids playing on it”.
Renting out the auditorium and dining halls brings in income for the police department. Around Rs 9,000 is charged as rent for the auditorium for a day while the rate will go up to Rs 10,000 for the dining room.
“Why does a sports stadium not have basic facilities like dressing rooms? And what does the Police Department do with the money they earn from renting out the stadium infrastructure?” asked Geevarghese.
“We looked for alternatives, but the University Stadium is equally bad and Greenfield International Stadium has been leased out to the Kerala Cricket Association,” he said.
After FIFA 2018 World Cup Qualifier match between India and Guam which was later moved to Bengaluru in 2015, this is the second time that the capital has been missing out on quality football action.
“We can have major tournaments in Thiruvananthapuram, but temporary solutions will not do. The national federation is very strict when it comes to facilities offered to the players and officials. And it is high time that our officials caught up with the times,” Geevarghese noted.