With just over two years left for the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2017 to kick off in India, the World Cup organising committee on Tuesday (30th June) announced the six provisional venues that would be hosting the world event.
News about Goa being selected as one of the six venues was doing rounds for few days now and all rumors about the news were put to rest when on Tuesday FIFA’s Local Organizing Committee confirmed it as one of the locations and said that Goa, along with Kerala, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Guwahati will host the 52 World Cup matches, owning to the fact that the selected venues adhere to the list of requirements and procure ratification a year before the tournament, that’s September 2016.
PJN Stadium, Goa
What is more, Goa was also been provisionally conferred as one of the location that will host the Asian Football Confederations (AFC) U-16 Championships in September 2016.
The 6 locations have been given a list of 8,532 requirements that they would need to complete before September 2016, in order to host the World Cup matches of 2017.
16 countries would be participating in 2017’s U-17 World Cup playing in total 52 matches. Every location is expected to host at least 6 group stage matches each between them.
Besides the above six locations, Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai have also been added to shortlist to host the mega event in case any of the above six cannot comply with the requirements.
Along with the required 8,532 points that needs to be adhered, according to Local Organising Committee officials, each location would needs four good training grounds with floodlights, four dressing rooms and one international stadium with immaculate pitch in order to ensure their certification from FIFA.
Cooperage Stadium, Mumbai
Though the status of hosting further knock-out matches is not known by the 6 selected cities yet, a certification by FIFA will give them show maximum over-all participation with each location getting to host at least one main match.
