Bhubaneswar: Just over a month remains for another global sporting event to be staged in Odisha, as India hosts the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup next month.
India’s three group league matches will be held at the Kalinga Stadium here. Indian girls will face USA on October 11, Morocco on October 14 and football powerhouse Brazil on October 17.
A high-level preparatory meeting, under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra, was held on Friday at Lok Seba Bhawan where Sports and Youth Services Secretary R Vineel Krishna presented the road map for infrastructure development and organization of the matches.
It was decided that spectators will be allowed to watch the matches, for which tickets will be sold online through the website https://india2022wwc.com/explore/c/fifa.
The Chief Secretary asked the departments of School & Mass Education and Sports & Youth Services to work out the schedule for match viewing of school students at Kalinga Stadium.
Sports Secretary Krishna elaborated on training arrangements for the teams.
“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,” he said.
The progress of work related to infrastructure upgradation of Kalinga Stadium, upgradation of training facilities, additional parking facilities, pitch maintenance, additional power at training sites, promotional activities and city activation, hospitality for guests, players and dignities, organization of football carnival involving around 60,000 school students were reviewed at the meeting.
The CS directed the concerned departments to complete assigned preparatory work by the end of September.
Expressing her satisfaction with the preparations, FIFA official Roma Khanna said: “Odisha is home to hockey, and now the state is also becoming home to football.”
