KOCHI: The inquiry report into the alleged misappropriation and irregularities surrounding the proposed visit of the 2022 World Cup-winning Argentina team led by Lionel Messi to Kochi for a ‘friendly exhibition match’ in 2025 has revealed a serious pattern of rule violations in handing over the Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium to a private sponsor.
The report prepared by the sports department, accessed by TNIE, stated that advancing the process of handing over a public stadium without officially ensuring final FIFA/AIFF registration constituted an extremely serious administrative lapse. The tripartite draft agreement in this regard stipulated valid FIFA registration as mandatory.
According to a government order dated October 11, 2025, the special monitoring committee constituted to review stadium-related matters appointed the managing director of Sports Kerala Foundation (SKF) as the chairman and the GCDA secretary as the convener, with Anto Augustine, chairman of Reporter Broadcasting Company (RBC), inducted as an official member.
With RBC itself being the principal sponsor, organiser, sole beneficiary of all commercial returns, and proposer of the stadium work, appointing the head of the company as a member of the government’s official monitoring committee created a direct conflict of interest.
“In the absence even of a final agreement with the sponsor duly scrutinised and vetted by the law department, granting the private sponsor such participation in an official body exercising control over a public stadium was contrary to principles of financial propriety and the standards governing government control over public assets,” the report stated.
The report pointed out that the inclusion in the standard operating procedure (SOP) relating to the proposition that “following the usual government procedures may not be feasible due to time constraints” was an extremely serious and unlawful red flag.
“Time constraints can never constitute a lawful basis for violating or dispensing with the Rules of Business, Secretariat Manual Procedures, prior consultation with the finance department, scrutiny by the law department and safeguards for public assets.
Another fact is that there was actually no time constraint, as no event was confirmed in the first place. Hence, the SOP can only be treated as evidence of a conscious attempt to bypass and compress the established government procedures and of the resulting rule violations,” the report said.
Further, it said that when action was initiated to make the Kaloor stadium available for the Argentina friendly, the file itself clearly recorded that the terms of handing over, revenue sharing, development work, and safety standards had to be discussed and finalised among the SKF, RBC and the GCDA.
However, the file contains no final event confirmation or duly signed agreement. It also lacks details on revenue sharing, technical sanctions for development work, safeguards for recovery of damages, insurance coverage, possession mahazar, pre-handover condition report of the stadium, structural fitness certificate, bank guarantee or security deposit, proof of clearance of dues to bodies like the KSEB and the Kerala Water Authority, or a restoration certificate confirming that the stadium was returned to its original condition.
The report also pointed out serious administrative lapses in the handling of files relating to the handing over of the stadium and the subsequent procedures.
The fact that the public stadium appears to have been made available in advance to the private sponsor for preparatory and structural work without complying with safety or legal safeguards constituted an extremely serious failure on the part of the GCDA and Sports Kerala Foundation to protect a public asset.
Excerpts from the report
The proposal submitted by the event-related company, GoatAd, at the initial stage was founded on an assurance that Lionel Messi would personally be brought to Kerala. The announcement clause in the subsequently executed AFA-RBC Addendum also specifically refers to the “Argentina National Football Team including Lionel Messi”. However, the file contains no legally binding agreement or signed undertaking constituting a player-specific commitment from Lionel Messi himself, his official club, agent or legal representatives, or from FIFA/any player-release authority empowered to release players
It is extremely serious that, although the project involved substantial additional financial liabilities and foreign exchange outflow over and above the AFA fee, the finance department did not examine the actual financial capacity of the private sponsor, the tax impact, the aggregate expenditure or the implications of making the government system available to it
Examination of the provisions relating to commercial rights in the Football Australia Agreement reveals the extensive financial benefit accruing to the private sponsor, RBC, from the transaction. However, the file contains no reference to any minimum guarantee, licence fee, brand-value fee, revenue share or surplus share payable to the state government, GCDA or SKF in consideration of the official status and public systems made available for the project