No football activities at Kanteerava henceforth: Sports Minister
The Hindu
The stadium has served as ISL club Bengaluru FC’s home ground from 2014-15
K.C. Narayana Gowda, Karnataka’s minister of Youth Empowerment and Sports, announced on Thursday that the Sree Kanteerava Stadium will henceforth not be used for football.
At a programme held to showcase the newly laid running track at the stadium, Gowda, in response to a question whether such refurbishments truly helped athletes when the stadium was being rented out for football and other activities, said, “we have taken a decision not to allow football.”
The stadium is owned by the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports (DYES) which is under the Karnataka government.
It now puts the conduct of Indian Super League matches at the venue in doubt, for the stadium has been Bengaluru FC’s home ground from 2014-15. ISL authorities have indicated that the competition will revert to the home-and-away format from the 2022-23 season after two editions in a bio-bubble.
BFC CEO Mandar Tamhane refused to comment as “he had no information on any of this.”
The use of the stadium by JSW-owned BFC has long been a bone of contention, with track and field athletes led by the Karnataka Athletics Association (KAA) even petitioning the Karnataka High Court.
In 2019, an agreement to hold matches was signed at the nth hour after the court, relying on a government gazette notification from 2011, held that there could be no bar on renting out the stadium for sports activities.