Karnataka Athletics Association

Bengaluru Football Club

Kanteerava Stadium

Bangalore

Sports Ministry

Muthappa Rai

Our focus should be on athletics as we are nowhere near an Olympic medal in football. There are many other stadiums where you can hold football matches, so this stadium should be kept exclusively for athletics — Muthappa Rai soon after getting elected unopposed as president of Karnataka Athletics Association

Bengaluru

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If the(KAA) has its way, March 11 may be the last time(BFC) plays a match at the Sree. Follo­w­ing a history of altercations between the KAA and JSW Sports (which owns BFC), the former has approached the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports (DYES) with an appeal to “permanently give back the Stadium to the KAA from March 15 onwards”, says Elvis Joseph, CEO, KAA. He adds that K Srinivas, commissioner – DYES, has assured him it will happen. Naturally, this will be a big blow for BFC, which has, in a short time, put football on the city’s map and amassed a legion of fans – fans who say they cannot be hosted by theFootball Stadium, because of an unstable spectator stand and a lack of world-class facilities. And the casualty, they fear, will be football.Srinivas acknowledged that the proposal had been received and forwarded to the, and a decision would be taken this week.There’s a history to this development. For a while now, KAA has been complaining about BFC cordoning off the pitch, barricading the area and not allowing athletes to practice, and taking over the Stadium for “20 days a month”, Joseph says, “when the agreement was for occasional use of the Stadium”. He adds: “For the last four-five years, we’ve not had any competitions because they have destroyed the running track. They take over the stadium two days before the match, and have security to shoo people away – they can’t do this. BFC is after all, a private club. DYES should support the state sport first.” There have been other incidents as well: in March last year, track and field athlete HM Manikanta alleged manhandling by an ISL cameraperson. In 2017, a group of athletes had filed a PIL in the High Court, questioning the use of the Stadium’s use for football.Mustafa Ghouse, CEO, JSW Sports, believes athletic stadiums all over the world have been used as multi-purpose sporting facilities. “So to say that the Kanteerava should only be used for athletics is something we do not agree with.” He cites the improvements JSW has made to the Stadium since 2013, from giving facilities such as restrooms, seating and stands, an uplift, to meeting the “challenge of repairing and re-installing infrastructure that has been damaged after every other sports meet”. He adds: “As far as the track is concerned, it belongs solely to the athletes and we don’t use it for any of our activities. We have even offered to revamp the 200-meter track and the area in between it as a solution to the athletes’ problem of having no space for throw-related disciplines. These are proposals that have been made formally from our end.”Joseph says such proposals ignore the real problem. “A 200m track is a warm-up track used during competition before an event, athletes cannot practice on it. Instead, why doesn’t JSW invest in building facilities that will develop their own sport? Why come here? You cannot target a venue where there’s already a sport. Kanteerava is not their solution. This is a temporary option that was given to them.”Ghouse says that the Stadium has hosted numerous national and international football games “long before we came into existence.FC has played a big role in reviving the love for football in the state and city and this has been done using Kanteerava as its home. We have even offered to support athletes from the state and city at our world-class training facility in Bellary called the Inspire Institute of Sport. Because of the way we have maintained the Stadium and the pitch, Kanteerava has become the favoured venue for Indian national team games and camps. The Under-17 team too took advantage of the facilities and conducted their camp at the Kanteerava ahead of the U-17 World Cup last year.”To which Joseph responds: “Globally, multi-sport arenas have basketball courts, volleyball courts, etc. It doesn’t mean they take over the track and field area.”Meanwhile, BFC fans hope a solution can be found to the problem. Rakesh Haridas (33), entrepreneur and BFC fanatic, has been following BFC since day one. “Bangalore Football Stadium is where we first met BFC, but we are no longer just 1,000-2,000 fans. As one of the biggest clubs in the country with some of the best footballers, BFC needs good facilities. Kanteerava is accessible, can hold all of us and gives us a good view of the match. These footballers are the pride of Karnataka, as are the athletes. I hope they find a way to co-exist.”Rakendu Jois, a BFC fan and software engineer, has seen football fans transition from supporting European clubs to cheering on one of their own. For him, it’s all “connected with Kanteerava”. “It is here that we saw BFC qualify for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup finals for the first time. If BFC wins the Indian Super League and qualifies for the AFC Cup, the match will have to be moved out of the city if they can’t play at Kanteerava. The Bangalore Football Stadium is too small to host the 10,000+ fans, and lacks proper facilities such as parking and toilets. It will be a big loss to us.”