The FIFA's inspection team on Wednesday sounded fairly satisfied over the progress at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, one of the venues for the Under-17 World Cup, but urged authorities to speed up work on core areas like competition and training sites.
With less than 200 days to go for the mega-event, an eight-member team led by FIFA's head of events Jaime Yarza, kicked off an inspection of the six chosen centres in the country, starting with the capital.
"We are satisfied, we have seen things move, we have seen things improve, but Delhi is a very important city in the world and the stadium should represent the city in the best way, and that means the stadium has to look really top notch."
Asked about the problem areas, Yarza said there is no major cause for concern at this stage.
"The competition areas are partially done only and also the training sites, which are important for the players. They (organisers) have a very good plan and they are working according to the plan. So, for me, these two are some of the key areas.
"A lot of work has been done, a lot of work will be done in the future. They just need to speed up a little bit more, but we are convinced everything is going to be alright. There is no major or big concern for us at this stage," Yarza, who was hoping for work on core infrastructure to be finished at this stage, said.
FIFA members along with LOC delegation visited the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to assess the progress of preparations for the tournament.
"FIFA is very satisfied with the assistance of the government and the sports minister (Vijay Goel). But at the same time it's important to know that we don't have that much time to go. There is a lot of improvement needed, lot of work still to be done here in Delhi, and I encourage authorities to keep working with the same enthusiasm but with stronger pace so that they can really deliver what is required by FIFA in that time," Yarza added.
Tournament director Javier Ceppi reiterated that work should be complete by the end of April.
"The support that we have got from the government, ministry, Sports of Authority of India has been fantastic. We worked very hard to make sure that the facilities are being renovated as per our requirement.
"The stadium was beautifully built for the 2010 Commonwealth Games and we need to bring back that splendour," he said.
Yarza said they will not have any back-up venue and in the event of a "catastrophe", "which we don't foresee", they will be hosting the tournament in five venues.
Asked about the pollution factor in the capital around Diwali, Yarza said they are aware of it and doctors from FIFA, India and other parts of the world will give "conclusions and deliberations" on it.
The delegation will continue its inspection visit to the five remaining host cities with Goa as the next stop, followed by Kochi, Navi Mumbai, Guwahati and Kolkata.
IMAGE: Jaime Yarza, FIFA Head of Tournaments, Inder Dhamija, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Sanjiv Baranwal, Director (Infra) Sports Authority of India, Javier Ceppi, Tournament Director, LOC FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017 and Joy Bhattacharjya, Project Director, LOC, FIFA U-17 World Cup India 2017.
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