What’s the story?
The Kanteerava Stadium, home to former I-League champions Bengaluru FC, has become the bone of contention between the city’s authorities and the state’s elite athletes and coaches. On Thursday, athletes such as the legendary Ashwini Nachappa and Dronacharya award-winning coach N Lingappa joined hands to protest against the unfair treatment meted out to the athletes in the city.
Nachappa, who is a former Olympian and Asian Games medalist, said, “We have only one synthetic track in Bengaluru but the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports (DYES) officials want our kids to travel to the city’s outskirts to train. They don’t realise that hundreds of kids come here to train after school.”
She was addressing hundreds of young athletes and top coaches and also made an appeal to the Chief Minister of Karnataka. “We appeal to chief minister Siddaramaiah to intervene, so that the national-level track and field athletes can resume training,” she said.
The coaches present at the protest pointed fingers at the state’s home minister and the president of the Karnataka Amateur Athletics Association (KAAA) G Parameshwara for not listening to their concerns. They said, “Why is he continuing as the president if he is of no help to the athletes? We have never seen him visit the stadium when the athletes are training.”
In case you didn’t know
The stadium is one of the oldest in the country and was built in 1948 when Bengaluru hosted the National Games.
The heart of the matter
Athletes have been training at the stadium for decades and have co-existed with players from other sports in harmony for decades. However, the conflict arose when the stadium was in line to be considered for hosting matches in the upcoming FIFA U17 World Cup in October.
A Stadium License Agreement was signed between the club Bengaluru FC and the DYES, following which track and field athletes have been denied access to the stadium and its facilities. Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers have been deployed at all gates and athletes are not being allowed to even enter the stadium.
What’s next?
Nachappa stated that the athletes would start using the field from Friday onwards and would be ready to face any kind of consequences.
Author’s take
It is a truly embarrassing state of affairs and reflects very poorly on the authorities. All sports must be given equal importance and the concerns of the athletes must be given due consideration.
