Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation to revamp football ground in Nerul

To provide football players participating in Women’s Asian Cup in Jan-Feb 2022 and the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup in October 2022 with a well-equipped ground for practice, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation has undertaken a major revamp of Yashwantrao Chavan ground in Nerul

To provide football players participating in two international tournaments with a well-equipped ground for practice, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) has undertaken a major revamp of Yashwantrao Chavan ground in Nerul.

Yashwantrao Chavan football ground in Nerul, which will be revamped by the Navi Mumbai civic body. (BACHCHAN KUMAR/HT PHOTO)

The officials from the NMMC sports department said that a few matches of the Women’s Asian Cup will be held at DY Patil Stadium in Nerul between January 20 and February 6, 2022. Likewise, a number of matches of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup will be held at the same stadium in October 2022.

A senior officer from the civic engineering department said, “The players of those tournaments will need a fine ground with good infrastructure for their routine practices. Therefore, we are now revamping this ground that already had a concrete compound wall with four-foot-tall steel nets above it. Now, at the behest of the authorities, we have increased the height of the steel nets up to eight feet. During the practice sessions, green sheets will be put on the nets so that people cannot watch it from outside.

“We have made some seating arrangements (granite steps covered with roofs) and developed four changing rooms, two waiting lounges and two washrooms. The changing rooms will have a total of 24 lockers. We are also developing inter-locking pathways so that players can easily walk from the ground to the restrooms.”

NMMC also has plans to develop a cricket pitch and a volleyball court at the other parts of the ground at a later stage.

The officer said, “We are finishing the work related to the upcoming tournaments in the first phase. We will take up work on the cricket pitch and volleyball court in the second phase. The civic body has allocated a budget of ₹3.50Cr for the entire work.”

Manoj Mahale, deputy municipal commissioner of NMMC (sports and cultural department), said, “We have taken the upcoming international tournaments as an opportunity to promote football in Navi Mumbai, specifically among the girls. Football is not a popular game among the students of civic schools here. The FIFA authorities recently trained our twelve coaches who will promote football among the students. The FIFA authorities have verbally assured us to train some of our students too.”