FIFA to host get-together at Eco Island

Kolkata: Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) is organising a get-together at Eco Island inside Eco Park on October 27.

FIFA has already inspected the site and a team from Mumbai will come next week to organise the get-together. The team that selected the site had expressed happiness over the infrastructure and its ambience.

Eco Park, the country's biggest urban park, covers an area of 480 acre and is surrounded by 112 acres of waterbody. Earlier, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had thrown a dinner party at the Eco Island to the guests who came to the city to attend Bengal Global Business Summit. The sculpture garden and the miniatures of seven Wonders of the World are the new attractions in the park. It has a Japanese garden, a rose garden and a mist garden. Impeccable maintenance and cleanliness have made it the most-visited urban park in the state with the footfall touching 80 lakh since the park was thrown open to public in January, 2013.

The get together will be held on October 27, a day before the final of Under-17 World Cup football which will be played at the Swami Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Krirangan. The president of FIFA Gianni Infantino will come to the city to attend the final. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her council of ministers along with some senior bureaucrats, former players and Olympians are likely to attend the get together.

A 300-member delegation from FIFA's headquarters in Zurich will come to the city to watch the final of the U-17, the biggest football event hosted by Kolkata. For the first time in the history of India, the council meeting of FIFA's Executive Committee will be held in Kolkata.

FIFA organisers have praised the Salt Lake stadium and have uploaded the picture of the stadium after its renovation in social media. They have said that the stadium is at par with any international football stadium anywhere in the world.

The state government kept no stones unturned to make the biggest-ever football event a grand success. Chief

Minister Mamata Banerjee has composed a song and footballs have been distributed among school, college, university students and social clubs to develop love for the game and revive Bengal's glory.