Bengaluru Bulls has shifted their home matches of the fifth edition of Pro Kabaddi League to Nagpur, the franchise announced on Wednesday. The Bulls, in a statement, said that their home matches scheduled to be held at Kanteerava Stadium will now be played at Nagpur’s Mankapur Indoor Stadium, reported PTI.
The franchise, based July 28 has seen a last minute change of venue due to the unavailability of Kanteerava Stadium. Unfortunately, the Department of Youth Empowerment and Services, that manages the stadium bookings, has not yet responded to the long pending request of deploying the venue for the Kabaddi matches.
Bengaluru Bulls were scheduled to play in the city from August 4 to 10. Expressing his disappointment, CEO of WL Sports League, Uday Sinh Wala said: “We are very disappointed to announce that Bengaluru Bulls will not be playing in their home turf this season. We have not yet received necessary permissions to host the matches on the required dates despite our incessant efforts.”
“We shall come back next year and play on our home turf hopefully, keeping the excitement and thrill of the tournament intact. Despite not playing in Bengaluru this season, we look forward to the immeasurable support from all our fans which will help motivate the team and keep their morale high as we take a step forward in our journey in an effort to lift the Cup in this fifth season of the Pro Kabaddi League,” he added.
‘We’re out of time’
The FIBA U-16 women’s Asian championship was also cited as a reason for the non-availability of the state-of-the-art Kanteerava Stadium, “We haven’t got the necessary permissions to use the Sree Kanteerava stadium. We wrote a letter to the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports and have been waiting for their reply since early June. Now, I have just nine working days to stage the tournament and am out of time. We usually try to get the permissions a month in advance,” Uday Sinh Wala was quoted as saying by the Times of India.
The DYES director Anupam Agarwal revealed that the Bulls were not granted permission because the stadium was booked till the end of October. He also said another indoor stadium in Bengaluru, the Koramangala Stadium was offered to the franchise.
Uday Singh Wala, though, opined that the infrastructure at the Kormangala Stadium proved to be a stumbling block in accepting the move, “There is no air-conditioning and if we put in external system on our own at a high cost, like we have done in the past at Sree Kanteerava stadium, then we will have space to seat less than 1,000 people,” he said.
