After over two years of re-laying work at the cost of Rs 5 crore, the synthetic track at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium is finally complete and ready to welcome athletes soon.
With this, the long running tussle between athletes and the Bengaluru Football Club over using the facility appears to take off from where it ended in 2019, once again.
Clearing the confusion, Dr K C Narayana Gowda, Minister of Youth Empowerment and Sport, assured that the stadium would be dedicated exclusively for track and field athletes. “Going forward, we have decided to allow only athletes to use the Kanteerava stadium and not permit football matches to happen,” said Gowda during the press conference held post his inspection of the newly-laid track.
The Karnataka Athletic Association had conveyed its displeasure last month to Karnataka Olympic Association, DYES and the State government through a letter about the issue cropping up once the stadium is thrown open for sporting activities.
In response, the DYES had maintained that a decision about renting the stadium to BFC during match days was pending. “Our position remains the same. 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,” said A Rajavelu, Secretary, Karnataka Athletics Association.
"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 be go to practice our field events? That is not acceptable to us," he added.
With ISL looking to get away from the bio-bubble and move back to playing games on home-and-away format from next season, the minister’s assertion casts a doubt on BFC’s home clashes at the stadium next year.
The stadium has been home to BFC since the beginning of 2014-15 season.
Reacting to the issue Mandar Tamhane, CEO of BFC said: “We cannot comment on anything because we have no information so far about the stadium not being accessible to us.”
More money for sports
The common lament for years by the Department of Youth and Sports or the sports ministry in the State has been the lack of funds from the State government.
Whether it is the shoddy maintenance of the DYES stadiums across Karnataka, payment of salaries to coaches, delay in the construction/renovation of sports facilities, achievers made to wait for years to receive cash awards promised by the authorities... fund crunch is often stated as the reason by the officials.
However, Gowda spoke about having discussions with the State government to allocate more money for the Sports Ministry. “No government had taken interest in sports before us. But Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has discussed increasing the money to be granted towards sports in the forthcoming budget on March 4,” he stated.
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