Of the six venues—Delhi, Navi Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Goa and Kochi, the FIFA team raised their concern over the state of preparation in Kochi. Speaking to The Sunday Guardian, Jaime Yarza, the head of the FIFA delegation of the under-17 World Cup said the work happening in Kochi was of concern to the world body. “ From the time I visited this venue last time (in February, 2016), some work has been done. But then its by far not enough,” said Yarza.
Yarza further expressed concern over the unfinished work and urged the state government to provide unrestricted support. “There is a matter of deep concern and that is the state government must get involved, give us an unrestricted support. They should understand the urgency of the situation, because there are a lot of changes that need to be made to the stadium,” Yarza said.
He also said that by May 15 a lot of things had to be completed. “The works need to be done by May 15 and given the large amount of renovation that must happen, works have to go on full speed. Also, the situation of the stores is quite concerning — from a security standpoint they cannot be opened during the tournament,” Yarza added. Yarza expressed grave concern over one aspect—which was stores with fuel tanks. “There are stores with fuel tanks, which is a grave safety and security concern, so their equipment also need to be taken out. Overall, work needs to happen, and the state government needs to make them happen fast.”
On his part, Javier Ceppi another FIFA observer said, “Over the past month, there has been a decent amount of work that has been done in Kochi. Unfortunately, it is a well-known fact that almost no work could happen last year while ISL was happening and that has had an impact on the renovation timelines for the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, which is lost time that we need to recover fast.
But he sounded more optimistic about the support from the state government. “We are confident that the state government will honour its commitment and that pending infrastructure work will be completed as soon as possible.”
The FIFA delegation was not quite happy with the nature of preparedness in Delhi as well. But then here it was much lesser than in Kochi.
As regards the preparation of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Yaza said, “We are satisfied, we have seen things move, we have seen things improve. But Delhi is a very important city in the world and the stadium should represent the city in the best way, and that means the stadium has to look really top notch,” Yarza said. Yarza added there was no major cause for concern at this stage.
«The competition areas are partially done only and also the training sites, which are important for the players. They (organisers) have a very good plan and they are working according to the plan. So, for me, these two are some of the key areas,» the FIFA official said.
«A lot of work has been done, a lot of work will be done in the future. They just need to speed up a little bit more, but we are convinced everything is going to be alright. There is no major or big concern for us at this stage,» said Yarza, who was hoping for work on core infrastructure to be finished by now.