Asian Cup qualifiers without general public irks Sunil Chhetri
National football icon Sunil Chhetri didn’t hide his disappointment at no tickets being sold to the general public for the Asian Cup Group D qualifiers to be played at the Salt Lake Stadium from June 8-14, and felt it deprived the Indian team of home advantage at a time when it needs crowd support the most.
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About 20,000 complimentary tickets have been issued, which has resulted in the organisers getting the stadium rent-free. Public sale of tickets would have forced the All India Football Federation (AIFF) to fork out around Rs 16 lakh per day.
The Indian team would be playing in Kolkata, the country’s football hub, after a gap of nearly three years and Chhetri would have liked the crowd in his corner as he tried to lead India to the continental championship.
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Premium“When Mohun Bagan played at 4 o’clock (in the AFC Cup), there were 38,000 people. How is it that we are finding it difficult to sell tickets (for 8.30 pm kick-offs) when the national team is playing? The same thing happened in Mumbai. If there are no fans for the game, I understand. When the national team is playing in the Northeast, in Kerala, it’s jam-packed. It doesn’t make sense,” said the veteran marksman.
The sparse crowd in the stands will make a mockery of home advantage, Chhetri said.
Sunil Chhetri (Illustration: Suvajit Dey)
“The least I was expecting was 30,000 because at 4 o’clock, they came for Mohun Bagan. We are happy that we are hosting it (the tournament), but (such little turnout) it would make no difference. When we come to play (here) for Bengaluru FC against Mohun Bagan and East Bengal, we feel it as an away side and it’s intimidating. So, they should fill (the stands) and then we can say we have home advantage. If in a stadium of almost 90,000, only 10,000-15,000 people turn up, then what’s the point of having home advantage? We go to training, there are 100 people, man! (So) I don’t understand how?”
He said Kolkata was one of the places where the national team can expect good support.
“There are a few places in my country where you go to play for the national team and we know you are going to get support. Kerala is one of them. Of course, Kanteerava (in Bengaluru) is one of them. But Kolkata is right up there and you feel special here, because they (fans) love their football.”
Lack of star power
Organisers, on the other hand, have cited lukewarm response to a tournament featuring teams from footballing backwaters as the reason for less crowd. India has a FIFA ranking of 106, ahead of Hong Kong (147), Afghanistan (150) and Cambodia (171).
“Look at the teams playing and their rankings. Do you think fans will throng the stadium? I don’t see more than 10,000 spectators turning up,” a former top AIFF official said.
The Salt Lake Stadium has a capacity in excess of 70,000.
Salt Lake Stadium.
“The Bengal government has issued instructions that all tickets should be free. See, printing tickets is not an issue but how to distribute them, whom to distribute to is an issue. Yes, they (state government) are giving (us) the stadium free and that’s why tickets (for the matches) have to be free. But we are giving 20,000 tickets, not a very small number,” AIFF director (competition) Anil Kamath told The Indian news, informing that the complimentary tickets would go to the state football associations, different clubs, government offices and from there “to public”. According to him, some tickets would be directly distributed to the public online.
The AIFF is currently helmed by the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), although tournaments are organised by the Federation’s secretariat. CoA member and former India captain Bhaskar Ganguly made his displeasure known. “I told Mr Kamath, if we would have been informed about this earlier, we could have taken the matter to the state government. The state government allowed 100 per cent turnout for IPL matches only a few days ago. We might have helped the organisers in this regard. Now, it’s probably too late. India are playing at home and they deserve crowd support,” Ganguly told this paper.
Chhetri admitted that the Indian team’s recent performances left a lot to be desired. “A little bit of negative feeling from the fans that we haven’t been doing well of late. That might be the reason. Last time we played here against Bangladesh and the result (1-1) wasn’t good, the performance wasn’t great. But the support was unbelievable. We will try our best to give them better memories than what we gave them against Bangladesh.”
