A THEFT OF PERSONAL BELONGINGS soured the celebrations for Delhi United after they registered their first win of the season in Delhi's Senior Division League.
The match between Delhi United - which is run by members of the Dynamos Ultras group - and City FC took place at the capital's famed Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Delhi United won the match 2-0, and when the players & staff returned to the dressing room, they found their valuables including phones & wallets stolen.
Deepesh Salhotra, a Dynamos Ultra and one of the Delhi United officials, told TFG,
"Yesterday when we were in the match someone used a key to enter our team's dressing room and took phones bags everything, we called the Football Delhi president Shaji Prabhakaran many times but he refused to come and help us, league Committee members left as soon as police came and there are no cameras in stadium premises they told us that only gate 1 and gate 10 have cameras out of which gate 1's camera is not working."
The Football Delhi's president, however, said that the matter was now being investigated by the police personnel, who were doing an adequate job.
The DUFC officials, however, were not satisfied with the way the ground staff responded to the situation. Salhotra elaborated,
"Football Delhi's employees gave 2 different statements about their copy of keys to 2 different police officers. A similar incident took place last year as well and yet there is no security in dressing rooms or anywhere else infact we were told to bring our own security."
The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium hosted many important events, including in the Commonwealth Games 2010 and all of India's games during the FIFA U-17 World Cup back in 2017. Till last season the arena served as the home ground of Delhi Dynamos FC. But since the ISL franchise left the city, there hasn't been much of a spotlight on the iconic stadium. This incident of theft has brought to light what appears to be a diminished state of care in stadium security around the once bustling hotbed for Indian football.