Mumbai: Last year's Federation Cup and National Football League winners Mahindra United have issued a veiled threat to the Western India Football Association that unless the latter spruces up the Cooperage ground to international standards the club would shift base to Goa.
"I had met the Goa CM (Pratap Sinh Rane) recently to talk about taking over the Campal ground (Panaji) for our team. I have also met WIFA officials and spoken about Cooperage's poor state to AIFF president Priyaranjan Dasmunsi," MU's president Alan Durante said on Tuesday.
"We want the Cooperage ground to be revamped for hosting international tournaments. At present the quality of its stands and players' changing rooms are poor. The ground is not nearly OK," said Durante.
"We want a back-up (plan to shift base to Goa) if talks on Cooperage's improvement do not work out (satisfactorily)."
Mahindra and Mahindra vice chairman and MD, Anand Mahindra, put it more bluntly by saying, "We (MU) will move to a centre which is more hospitable, if needed. I will be happy if this appears in print and puts pressure (on WIFA officials)," he said.
But Durante was not willing to say whether Mahindra United have given a deadline to WIFA for carrying out changes to the Cooperage ground which is in a dilapidated state.
"We are putting pressure," he said.
Cooperage is the venue of all Mumbai clubs' home matches in the NFL but was not good enough to host Mahindra's Asian Football Confederation home preliminary league ties last year which were shifted to Goa's Nehru Stadium, Fatorda.
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