FIFA inspection today

A two-member FIFA delegation will be checking in here on Monday to inspect the venues that will be finally picked for the Under-17 World Cup in 2017. 

The plan for Inaki Alvarez, FIFA’s director of competitions, and Vijay Parth-asarathy, competitions manager, is to first look at the Bangalore Football Stadium in the morning before inspecting the Sree Kanteerava Stadium. 

They will wind up their tour of the venues in the city with a look at HAL’s ground. While BFS is currently the main football stadium in the city, the main difference between it and the other two venues is the artificial turf which the former has. 

The officials of the world governing body, who arrived in India on Thursday, have so far inspected Goa, Pune and Mumbai. 

AIFF shortlisted eight cities -- Goa, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Kochi, Guwahati and New Delhi -- but only six cities will make the cut. 

The primary venues in three of those cities -- Bangalore (BFS), Kolkata (Salt Lake Stadium) and Mumbai (Cooperage) -- have synthetic turfs which could be a problem. Based on the report of the team, the six host cities will be announced at a yet-to-be-decided date.