Fifa’s inspection team on Wednesday sounded fairly satisfied with the progress at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, one of the venues for the 2017 Under-17 World Cup. However, world football’s governing body urged authorities to speed up work on core areas such as competition and training sites.
With less than 200 days to go for the mega event, an eight-member team led by Fifa’s head of events, Jaime Yarza, on Wednesday kicked off inspections of the six chosen centres in the country, starting with the capital.
“We are satisfied, we have seen things move, we have seen things improve, but Delhi is a very important city in the world and the stadium should represent the city in the best way, and that means the stadium has to look really top notch,” Yarza said. Asked about the problem areas, Yarza said there was no major cause for concern at this stage.
“The competition areas are only partially done and also the training sites, which are important for the players,” he said. They [organisers] have a very good plan and they are working according to the plan. So, for me, these two are some of the key areas.
“A lot of work has been done, a lot of work will be done in the future. They just need to speed up a little bit more, but we are convinced everything is going to be alright. There is no major or big concern for us at this stage,” he added.
Fifa members, along with the Local Organising Committee delegation, visited the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to assess the progress of preparations for the tournament.
“Fifa is very satisfied with the assistance of the government and the sports minister [Vijay Goel],” Yarza said. “But at the same time it’s important to know that we don’t have that much time to go. There is a lot of improvement needed, lot of work still to be done here in Delhi, and I encourage authorities to keep working with the same enthusiasm but with stronger pace so that they can really deliver what is required by Fifa in that time.”
Tournament director Javier Ceppi said that work should be complete by the end of April.