Bhubaneswar: As another milestone of surging sports activities in Odisha under the visionary leadership of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Odisha is going to host FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup for football. The Kalinga Stadium, the Centre of Excellence in Sports will host three India pool matches on 11, 14 and 17 October of the current year.
For this purpose, a high-level preparatory meeting was held under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra in Lokseba Bhawan conference hall today wherein Secretary Sports and Youth Services R. Vineel Krishna presented the proposed road map for infrastructure development and organization of the matches.
Reviewing the preparations made so far, Chief Secretary Mahapatra directed the concerned departments to complete assigned preparatory works by end of September. The progress of the works regarding infrastructure up-gradation in Kalinga Stadium, up-gradation of training facilities, additional parking facilities, pitch maintenance, additional power in training sites, promotional activities like 38 days school programme and city activation, city barding, hospitality for guests, players and dignities, organisation of football carnival involving around 60,000 school students, etc were reviewed in the meeting.
FIFA official Roma Khanna expressed deep satisfaction over the progress. She said, “Odisha is home to hockey, and now the State is also becoming home to football.” She also praised the sports ecosystem developed in Odisha.
Further, the Chief Secretary laid emphasis on ensuring health, sanitation, security and fire services. Development Commissioner Padeep Kumar Jena advised to deploy ODRAF and Fire service teams in advance there at Kalinga Stadium. All concerned departments were directed to extend their active cooperation for making the event smooth, safe and memorable.
It was decided that public viewing of the matches would be allowed. Tickets would be sold online through the site https: // india2022wwc.com/explore/c/ fifa.
The Chief Secretary asked the departments of School and mass education and Sports and youth services to work out the schedule for match viewing of school students in the Stadium.
Krishna said, “Football training centres (4 natural grass ground, 1 artificial grass ground) will allow ample training time to the visiting teams without clashes in training schedule. The main football ground that recently hosted Indian Women’s League and SAFF U20 is amongst the best football venue in India, and will provide a wonderful experience to the young players”. Three matches would be played in Kainga Stadium. The scheduled matches would be India vs, USA on 11 October, India vs, Morocco on 14 October, and India vs Brazil on 17 October.
Development Commissioner Pardeep Kumar Jena, Director General of Police Sunil Kumar Bansal, Principal Secretary Finance Vishal Kumar Dev, Principal Secretary Information and Public Relations Sanjay Kumar Singh, Secretary Handicraft , Handloom and Textiles Subha Sharma, CMD IDCO Bhupendra Singh Poonia, Police Commissioner S.K. Priyadarshi, Director Tourism Sacheen Ramchandra Yadav, FIFA representative, Roma Khanna, FIFA LOC Director, Nandini Arora, along with senior officers of concerned departments participated in the discussions.
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