MUMBAI: It has taken just over a decade for the D Y Patil stadium, located on the fringes of metropolitan Mumbai, to host its first ever international soccer event.
Vijay Patil, president of the D Y Patil Sports Academy, is confident that the FiFA U 17 tournament will generate generous footfalls to the venue when it hosts the group B matches beginning 6 October.
“The ticket sales will throw up a surprise,” he says confidently.
While some of the other six hosting venues – like Kolkata, Kochi and Guwahati – could look forward to assured audiences given the football interest in the respective states, Patil says an event of this stature and the mobilisation of youth interest in the game in recent months will ensure that the D Y Patil stadium too will corner its share of spectator glory. An estimated Rs200 to 250 million has been mobilised internally to make the only private arena in the country FIFA compliant and match ready.
Forty-three thousand chairs have been flown in from South Korea, the seating streamlined to make sight lines clear for every seat, a new fabric roof installed, and a 518 kw solar energy plant installed to meet 50 per cent of the stadium’s needs. Two additional football fields have been added to the facility, alongside 16 emergency exit bridges and additional dressing rooms that have been put in.
D Y Patil Sports Academy president Vijay Patil
The efforts have earned the stadium a neat packet of praise from visiting FIFA officials. In March this year, LOC FIFA U-17 World Cup tournament director Javier Ceppi said, “This is by far the best stadium in the country at this point of time. (And) we need to make sure that every single other stadium is as good as this one. This is the standard. This is the standard the other stadiums have to get.”
But Patil says what really excites him is the FIFA and AIFF strategy to leave a long lasting legacy by inculcating a love for the game among the youth. “We have tried to localise our effort, networked with 50 schools and colleges in Navi Mumbai, and have introduced programmes to popularise football.” On 4 September, a six a side tournament with 40 schools participating was held as a buildup to the main event.
Patil is confident of spontaneous spectator turnout, the stadium’s distance from Mumbai city notwithstanding. “There is a huge population of sports enthusiasts in Thane, Navi Mumbai (with its poulation of two million) and Mumbai city, plus we are expecting spectators from Pune, Kolhapur and Nashik, where interest levels in the game are huge.”
He points to the turnout the Indian Super League matches used to generate when the stadium was home ground for ISL franchise Mumbai City FC. “We attracted audiences of 20000 to 25000 for every match.”
The promotional campaigns for the event, when they kick off later this month, is when spectator and fan interest in the event will convert into ticket sales, he believes. D Y Patil stadium will be the base for the group B teams of Paraguay, Turkey, New Zealand and Mali, will host a US-Columbia tie as well as a round of 16 match and a semi final. “40 per cent of the teams participating in the tournament will be playing at Navi Mumbai. Apart from Kolkata, this is the only other venue to see so many teams playing,” he points out.
D Y Patil stadium – Ready and waiting for kick-off.
The IPL was not in existence, Twenty20 had not taken root in india in 2004, and matches were few and far between when Patil took up the task of building a stadium in Navi Mumbai. He says he has never followed a long term plan but the big ticket events have kept flowing. After the stadium was ready in 2006, the Indian Champions League (ICL) came its way in 2007, the Indian Premier League (IPL) followed in 2008. Mumbai’s iconic Wankhede stadium was under renovation at the time and D Y Patil got the chance to host the finale of the first IPL, and then again in 2010. The Indian Super League happened after that, and soon after Mumbai City FC decided to shift its home ground to the Andheri Sports Complex after a two year stint at the D Y Patil, the FIFA U 17 came its way.
Big ticket sporting and music events drive the commerce for the stadium, but college and inter university events are held in the facility throughout the calendar year to ensure that it stays one of the busiest private stadiums in the country. His team, says Patil, has mastered the technique of managing the turf so, that it can be turned around to suit either a football or cricket match within a short period. After the Justin Bieber concert it hosted in May this year, which saw 80000 fans converging at the stadium, the ground was ready for a crikcet match within a week. Once the FIFA matches are over, the DY Patil academy T 20 will take over the ground.
Patil says if assured of the certainty of big ticket games of either sport, he would be ready to invest in even better infrastructure, including retractable turfs and portable pitches. For now though, the stadium’s goal is to make sure its FIFA U 17 matches are a success with the fans and organisers alike.
Everything else can wait.
