The DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai has been officially named as the second venue for the FIFA U17 World Cup, to be held across India next year. This news comes a day after the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium Stadium Kochi, Kerala, was announced as the first of the six Indian stadiums to host the mega football tournament for the junior players.

The 23-member delegation comprising experts from FIFA and the Local Organising Committee (LOC), who conferred the official status to the stadium in Kochi for hosting the FIFA event on Wednesday, visited the DY Patil Stadium on Thursday and seemed happy with the work done by the local authorities.

It was November 2014, when Joy (Bhattacharya) and myself took probably the single most important flight for this tournament. We were struggling to find (to find) a solution for a venue, and solution to the situation in Mumbai. We took the flight an met Dr Vijay Patil. Dr Patil and D Y Patil institution, with 300 students understood the magnitude of this event and they understood that this is a once in life-time opportunity,” Tournament Director Javier Ceppi told reporters.

“…It’s much more than just holding a World Cup and 23 days. You need somebody with a vision, you need somebody that has capacity to look at the project as a whole. At that time, he (Patil) assured us that he would do everything in his capacity to make the facility ready and to mobilise the project throughout,” he added.

“So, it is our pleasure to ratify Navi Mumbai and the D Y Patil Sports stadium as a venue for the FIFA Under 17 World Cup, Congratulations” Ceppi announced.

The basis for the ratification for the Navi Mumbai venue not only focused on the main DY Patil Stadium and the training sites, but also took into account the interest that local authorities took throughout the process.

Yesterday, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi became the first Indian venue to be officially confirmed as a host for the upcoming Under-17 FIFA World Cup after it received a green signal from a high-level delegation of football’s world body.

The other cities that are under consideration are Delhi,  Guwahati, Margao and Kolkata.The delegation will now visit Goa on October 22.