Atletico de Kolkata face practice ground predicament

The Salt Lake stadium is not being made available to ATK

Defending champions Atletico de Kolkata are set to reach the city of joy tomorrow, but team officials have raised concerns over a lack of practice venues within the city. The Salt Lake stadium is currently undergoing renovation, and will not be available two days prior to ATK’s first home game.

ATK CEO Subrata Talukdar raised concerns over the dilemma, saying,”We had shortlisted a couple of grounds such as Barasat and Bidhannagar Municipality ground. However, these two grounds both have their issues. The former is an artificial pitch, which is useless for us and Bidhannagar isn’t up to the mark yet. But, the authorities have leased it out to us for three months. Hence, we are creating our own dressing rooms etc.”

The shortage has also highlighted the lack of floodlit football practice grounds in Kolkata.

Will expand our grassroots level campaign: ATK CEO

On a positive note, ATK have confirmed a total of 18 sponsors this season, with the number rising significantly from last season’s 7. Talukdar added, “We are firstly glad to announce our association with SRMB, who will be one of our jersey sponsors. On our jersey specifically we will be having six sponsors this time and we are also glad to announce that a total of 12 association partners have also signed up.”

The influx of several new sponsors will also see ATK set up a new academy in Bengal. Talukdar said,”We along with SRMB will expand our grassroots level campaign. Last year, we had a total 1800 kids from Bengal participate. But, now we are planning on making it bigger. We will take the underprivileged children from the mason’s families and completely fund their football training. The academy will boast of world-class facilities. The recently launched Reliance Academy saw 10 of it’s 24 kids from our state. The talent is there.”

Utsav Parikh, co-owner of ATK, who was also present at the press conference stated, “Our fan base of 4,000 is complete. These are our permanent members, they will be getting a jersey, flag, wristband and most importantly complimentary tickets for all 7 home matches. Apart from that we have a set of 200 fans dispersed across various cities who will also be coming for the home games.”

With a bit more than a week to go, ATK have promised that there will be more sponsor announcement tie-ups, but their major concern still remains the practice ground. Talukdar said, “This adds to our woes as we wanted the Salt Lake stadium, this would have helped us get used to the turf as well.”

Politics ruining #indianfootball again: East Bengal, Mohun Bagan barred from YBK to "protect grass" but a law college given access to ground

— Chiranjit Ojha (@ChiranjitOjha) September 22, 2015