Messi’s three-day GOAT India Tour concluded on 15 December. In that time, La Pulga (Spanish for The Flea) visited four cities: Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi. Three of those visits passed without incident. Kolkata’s made headlines, and for the wrong reasons. It was a chance to show the world the city at its best. With the Trinamool Congress (TMC) in charge, that was perhaps too much to expect.
Kolkata is India’s football capital, and its fans were the ones let down. Many paid thousands of rupees for tickets, some as much as Rs 25,000, and never got a proper glimpse of Messi. Scheduled for 45 minutes, he stayed for about 20. When he walked onto the pitch, 70 to 80 people surrounded him, including the organisers, club officials and the state’s Sports Minister, Aroop Biswas, many of them taking selfies and collecting autographs. The fans in the stands might as well have stayed home. After Messi was escorted out, angry spectators threw bottles and chairs and vandalised the stadium, causing damage officials estimated at around Rs 2 crore.
Clubs like Mohun Bagan and East Bengal have produced players of international calibre. In a state so closely identified with football, when disorder at an event featuring one of the game’s greatest players makes international headlines, it is not merely an administrative failure. It is an affront to Bengal’s pride.
The event was privately organised, and its promoter, Satadru Dutta, was arrested the same day. But crowd control, the police and the stadium were the state’s responsibility, and so was the minister standing beside Messi. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee apologised to Messi and his fans on X and handed the matter to an inquiry committee headed by a retired judge. Beyond that, she offered no public account of what her own minister was doing on the pitch. The committee’s preliminary report led to show-cause notices for the state’s police chief and the Bidhannagar police commissioner, the suspension of a deputy commissioner and the removal of the stadium’s CEO. Officers were punished quickly. A week later, the committee had yet to summon a single one of the influential people accused of crowding Messi that day.
Serious questions were raised about Biswas’s role: over ticket pricing, chaotic entry arrangements and a focus on VIP photo-ops over the fans who had paid to be there. He gave up the sports portfolio “for the sake of an impartial inquiry”, but kept his place in the cabinet as Power Minister. Banerjee took charge of the sports department herself, so the inquiry is now examining a department run by the Chief Minister who appointed it. In a state where unemployed youth have long waited for sports-quota appointments and basic facilities, that arrangement deserves scrutiny.
A Chief Minister’s responsibility is not only to retain power but to protect the state’s dignity. An apology on social media and the punishment of a few officers do not settle the question of why ministers stood between Messi and the people who had paid to see him. Bengal deserves leadership that answers that question, not one that investigates itself.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article said Mamata Banerjee had remained silent and that there was no public information about the inquiry committee. She apologised publicly on 13 December, and the committee’s preliminary report led to action against police and stadium officials. The article also said Aroop Biswas resigned; he gave up the sports portfolio and remained a minister. The Dossier regrets the errors.
