It’s official: Messi’s Argentina to play in Kerala

They will. They is not going to. They will. They is not going to.

Now, they certainly will. Lionel Messi’s Argentina will play a world pleasant in Kerala, in spite of everything.

After a number of months of uncertainty, throughout which Kerala’s Sports Minister V. Abdurahiman had to announce that Argentina would play, after which that the World champion wouldn’t be touring the State, the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) itself said on Saturday that its nationwide staff could be taking part in in Kerala in November. It can be performed on the Greenfield Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram.

The match is being organised by Reporter Broadcasting Company. “Though we received the email a couple of days ago from the AFA that Argentina would play in Kerala in November, we didn’t make an announcement and were waiting for them to say it first,” Anto Augustine, Reporter’s managing director, instructed The Hindu over the cellphone from Kochi on Saturday. “There had been so much negativity in the media about the match of late, so we felt it would be better if the AFA made it official first.”

He mentioned a call could be made quickly about Argentina’s rival for the match. “We are looking at teams like Australia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,” he mentioned. “We are also trying to get Brazil. We hope to finalise the team within a week.”

Apart from the match, the Argentine staff will even have interaction in a fan assembly, which may very well be at Kozhikode. “In our agreement, the AFA said they would have a fan meeting of 45 minutes,” mentioned Anto. “We haven’t finalised the venue for that, but we feel Kozhikode or Malappuram would be ideal, given the love of football in the Malabar region.”

He mentioned the match may coast one thing like ₹400 crore. “Since two national teams are playing, we feel finance would not be an issue,” he mentioned. “We have already begun work on getting enough sponsors.”

Anto identified that his firm had come into the image some seven months in the past, after the preliminary sponsor backed out. “We were always confident that the match would go ahead,” he mentioned.

“We had signed the agreement with the AFA for the match to be played in October or November. But in June, they told us they would instead be interested to play next year. We were not ready for that. We wanted Argentina to come to Kerala this year. I think that is the reason why the whole thing became such a big controversy.”