Tournament Director Javier Ceppi and officials of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 visited Kochi on April 18th and assessed the improvement made since the FIFA inspection on March 24th.

The 10th task force meeting for the Kochi venue took place on April 18th, on which LOC officials inspected the progress of the venue to comply with the deadline of May 15th given during the FIFA inspection.

After going through all the renovation and work details with State Government and Greater Cochin Development Authority, the LOC declared itself satisfied with the amount of progress that has been made.

Tournament Director Javier Ceppi said, “The State Government of Kerala has put massive human resources to make sure that all deadlines are met. At the moment, there are hundreds of workers in the stadium and other hundreds on the training sites. The amount of progress since the FIFA inspection has been quite positive and we are satisfied and confident that Kochi will be able to meet the deadline.

Also, the stadium owners have already given the assurance that the shops around the stadium will be closed which is extremely important for us. We certainly feel that now Kochi is in a good path and we hope that they keep up the good work that has been done since the FIFA visit.

We are even starting to work with other departments such as police to go deep into the operational planning and the state government has already initiated the process for the signing the host city logo so we think all the right steps are being taken to ensure the status of Kochi as a venue.”

The inspection team also visited the four training grounds and asserted that there has been progress on that front as well.

Talking about developments at Kochi, FIFA Head of Tournaments Jaime Yarza said, “We still believe in Kochi – the authorities have confirmed that the shops will be closed during the tournament so that safety and security can be guaranteed. The facility overall should be ready and we must mention that work is being put in the right direction there”.

The next inspection scheduled at Kochi is on April 29th.

(FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 LOC)