Kolkata: Football great Lionel Messi’s much awaited visit to Kolkata turned into a messy affair on Saturday morning after the Argentine captain was forced to cut-short his schedule at the Yuba Bharati Krirangan (Salt Lake Stadium), leaving fans disappointed and demanding refunds.
Messi, accompanied by his teammates from Inter Miami Luis Suarez and Rodrigo De Paul, was supposed to take a victory lap around the stadium. Thousands of fans – many of them from other states – had purchased tickets to watch this event. However, scores of people, who had no right to be close to Messi, surrounded him.
As a result, people in the stands, who had paid money to watch the show, were deprived of even a proper glimpse of their star.
Realising that the situation was fast getting out of hand, security personnel bundled Messi and the other footballers out of the stadium, barely 22 minutes after they arrived.
What followed was pandemonium with fans alighting on the turf, dumping garbage and damaging property. The police had to use force to bring the situation under control, while West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee order a high-level inquiry under a former Calcutta High Court judge.
Following Mamata’s statement, Shatadru Dutta, the organiser of the event was arrested from the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata, where he had gone to see Messi and the others off, timesnownews.com has reported.
“I am deeply disturbed and shocked by the mismanagement witnessed today at Salt Lake Stadium. I was on my way to the stadium to attend the event along with thousands of sports lovers and fans who had gathered to catch a glimpse of their favourite footballer, Lionel Messi,” Mamata posted on X.
“I sincerely apologise to Lionel Messi, as well as to all sports lovers and his fans, for the unfortunate incident. I am constituting an enquiry committee under the chairmanship of Justice (Retd) Ashim Kumar Ray, with the Chief Secretary and the Additional Chief Secretary, Home and Hill Affairs Department, as members. The committee will conduct a detailed enquiry into the incident, fix responsibility, and recommend measures to prevent such occurrences in the future,” she said.
“Once again, I extend my heartfelt apologies to all sports lovers,” Mamata added.
Irate fans took to social media after the fiasco and vent their anger on what took place.
“We paid thousands just to watch politicians take selfies while Messi disappeared in minutes,” one of the posted on X.
“This is not crowd trouble — this is organiser failure,” posted another.
Others said the chaos was depressingly familiar.
“Every big sporting event follows the same script. When will we finally learn?” read a widely shared post.
