Salt Lake Stadium handed over to FIFA

Kolkata, Sep 10: The Salt Lake Stadium was on Sunday handed over to FIFA with less than a month to go for the start of the U-17 World Cup which gets underway on October 6. The colossal venue will host the fil on October 28 along with five Group F matches and one Group E game. There will be one round-of-16, a quarterfil and a third place tie also. The first game here will be between England and Chile on October 8.

“Ninety-eight per cent of the work is done and the remaining two per cent will be over in a month’s time,” state Sports Minister Aroop Biswas told reporters here.

“The work began on February 1, 2015 and after putting in tireless work. Many say it’s best in Asia but we can proudly say that it’s of Intertiol standard and the best in the world,” he added. Principal Secretary Saeed Ahmed Baba signed the official document to hand over the stadium to FIFA Local Organising Committee (LOC) tourment director Javier Ceppi. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will formally iugurate the stadium from Uttar Kanya, the branch Secretariat of Government of West Bengal in Siliguri, North Bengal. Biswas said after installing bucket seats, the capacity of the stadium came down to 80,000-plus, but for security reasons FIFA has further reduced the official capacity to 66,687. IANS