BENGALURU: Karnataka’s minister of Youth Empowerment and Sports, KC Narayana Gowda, announced on Thursday that Sree Kanteerava Stadium, home turf of Hero Indian Super League franchise Bengaluru FC since the club's inception, will henceforth not be used for football.
At a programme held to showcase the newly laid running track at the Stadium, Gowda, in response to a question whether such refurbishments truly helped athletes when the stadium was being rented out for football and other activities, was quoted by Sportstar as having said, “We have taken a decision not to allow football.”
The stadium is owned by the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports (DYES), which is under the state government.
Seeing as Football Sports Development Ltd (FSDL), organisers of the ISL, plan to revert the league to a home-and-away format from the 2022-23 season after two editions in a bio-bubble forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the development puts JSW-owned BFC in a serious bind.
As Sportstar notes, the use of the stadium by BFC has long been a bone of contention, with track and field athletes led by the Karnataka Athletics Association (KAA) even petitioning the Karnataka High Court.
In the last week of December, the KAA had made a fresh appeal to the government to not allow football in 2022. When the government sought DYES’ opinion in January, the latter said a final decision had not been taken.
“This stadium is not a multi-purpose stadium and track and field athletes should be priority,” KAA secretary A Rajavelu told Sportstar.
“With permission from DYES, JSW can use the stadium on match-day and one day before that. But on other days, we should have unrestricted access.”
He added, “In the past they [JSW] have created problems by not allowing us to step on the grass and such. This is not acceptable to us. Where will we practise our field events?"
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