No football in Kanteerava stadium says Karnataka Sports Minister
BENGALURU: The Sree Kanteerava Stadium has been a bone of contention between JSW-owned Bengaluru Football Club (BFC) and the Karnataka Athletics Association (KAA). And on Thursday, when the newly relaid synthetic athletics track was unveiled during an event at the venue, Karnataka's Sports Minister KC Narayana Gowda also said that the stadium will not be used for football matches.
This comes at a time when there are talks of the Indian Super League reverting to the pre-pandemic format — home and away — for next season. The last two seasons, including the ongoing one, have been held inside a bio-bubble in Goa. The minister's comment has sowed the seed of doubts for Bengaluru's home venue, but club CEO Mandhar Tamhane declined to comment, stating that he is not aware of all this (Gowda's comment).
It is important to mention here that the stadium belongs to the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports (DYES) which comes under the state government. The KAA, whose athletes train at the stadium, is not happy with how things have transpired in the past when Bengaluru played their home matches here. KAA secretary A Rajavelu made it clear that the track and field athletes should be given first priority.
"This stadium is not a multi-purpose stadium. They can go and play at the football stadium which is exclusively for football. Track and field athletes should be the priority at Kanteerava. With permission from DYES, JSW can use the stadium for football on the day of the match and one day before that. But on other days, we should have unrestricted access to the ground. In the past, they (JSW) have created problems by not allowing us to step on the grass and such. Where will we go to practise our field events? That is not acceptable to us," he said.
The athletics body has been quite active on the matter and even wrote to the state government late last year, stating that they should not give permission for football. But, a final decision has not been reached on the matter.