The Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup confirmed the appointment of Javier Ceppi as Tournament Director and Joy Bhattacharjya as the Project Director for the mega event slated to be held in October 2017 in India.

The appointment process was concluded after an interview panel comprising of Kushal Das (General Secretary, AIFF), Windsor John (Deputy General Secretary, AFC), Dr. Shaji Prabhakaran (Development Officer, FIFA) and Subrata Dutta (Executive Committee Member & Senior Vice President, AIFF) had interviewed the candidates in late August 2014 at the Football House.

The shortlisted candidates were then interviewed by Praful Patel (President, AIFF) before the appointments were finalised.

Kushal Das stated: “We are extremely pleased with the appointments as both Javier and Joy bring to the table a great amount of experience and expertise.”

He added: “Javier was involved in the U-17 World Cup in the UAE in 2013 and is also a Director of the U-17 World Cup which will be held in Chile in 2015 and comes with a great deal of knowledge on how FIFA U-17 World Cups are conducted.”

“Furthermore, Joy has very good experience of media activations and is well known for his creativity and knowledge of managing events and production in India. We all felt that both of them complement each other perfectly in delivering a world class event as well as creating the youth activation for the FIFA U-17 World Cup which is so necessary to change the face of Indian football.”

The LOC of the 2017 FIFA U-17 World Cup will be based at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi and both Javier and Joy will take up their responsibilities from November 1, 2014 onwards.

(Report & Picture courtesy AIFF Media)