A banner destroyed amid the chaos during Argentina footballer Lionel Messi’s ‘GOAT India Tour 2025’ event at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan (VYBK) in Kolkata.
Sports promoter Satadru Dutta on Monday spoke publicly about the issues during Lionel Messi’s GOAT Tour event in Kolkata last year.Messi, along with former Barcelona teammate Luis Suarez and former Atlético Madrid player Rodrigo de Paul, left the Salt Lake Stadium within 25 minutes on 13 December after confusion and trouble with the crowd at the venue.
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Satadru Dutta accuses TMC’s Aroop Biswas of sabotaging Lionel Messi’s event in KolkataAt the time, then West Bengal Sports Minister Aroop Biswas, who was with Messi during the event, was accused of letting people into the stadium without registration. Many fans who bought expensive tickets were unhappy.The situation later turned chaotic, with some fans damaging property inside the stadium. The event, which was supposed to last an hour, had to be shortened.A few hours later, Satadru was arrested at the Kolkata airport and remained in custody for 38 days before being released on 19 January.After the recent assembly elections in West Bengal in which Biswas lost the Tollygunge seat and the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) lost power, Satadru publicly reacted to the incident.“Just because you lost the election don’t think you have been punished. I will file a defamation suit and if necessary I will go to the Supreme Court. I will fight till the end,” he wrote on Facebook stories cited by Sportstar.He also accused Biswas of ignoring repeated warnings during the event.“I repeatedly told him not to click pictures here. But he, using his power, clicked pictures. He will have to pay for it. He (Biswas) is laughing while his own people are infiltrating. No one heard my scream of agony. The police were also standing by,” he added.Satadru further said that he will hold a press conference soon and talk in detail about what happened.“The press conference is coming. All will be revealed. You sabotaged my event. You persecuted me. You came to naught of my three years of effort and perseverance. You failed all the fans. You imprisoned me for 38 days. Now it’s my turn. They thought silence could bury the truth…they forced my team to issue a ground access card. When they were denied access, you arrested them in a ground access card. Your puppets only they didn’t interfere…they blackmailed my event, they sabotaged everything.”
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