4 weeks to go, Salt Lake stadium gears up for Indian Super League
Times of India | 19 January 2026
Kolkata: The scars of Dec's fury are still visible at Salt Lake stadium, but the race to reclaim Indian football's most storied arena has begun. With the Indian Super League less than a month away, groundsmen have moved in, grass is being replanted, and the vast concrete Astroturf spread around the pitch is slowly stirring back to life, even as reminders of chaos lie scattered in its shadows.
Over the last 10 days, restoration work started on the playing surface and the Astroturf running track that rings the field. Authorities admit it is a battle against the clock. The stadium, home to Mohun Bagan and East Bengal and the traditional stage for Kolkata's fiercest football rivalries, suffered damage running into several crores after fans ran amok on Dec 13 following Lionel Messi's controversial and abrupt exit from a commercial event hosted at the venue.
A month later, the clean-up is still incomplete. A visit to the venue shows groundmen carefully placing and replacing grass patches on the field, repairing sections of the turf around it. At one corner of the stand, broken bucket chairs lie stacked like debris after a storm. The fibre roof covering the players' tunnel, badly damaged during the rampage, is still lying broken. On the southern side, a goalpost stands without a net, its damage yet to be addressed.
"Our priority right now is the grass and the track," said a stadium official. "Once that is stabilised, we will move to the galleries and other infrastructure. The aim is to make the stadium match-ready as soon as possible."
PWD's preliminary assessment, carried out a day after the violence, had pegged losses at several crores. Natural grass was uprooted, sections of the Astroturf torn, goalposts dislodged, nets cut, tunnel roofs vandalised, and gallery grilles ripped apart. Hundreds of plastic water and cold drink bottles were found strewn across the pitch and track.
Torn posters bearing the marks of mob fury are still visible in parts of the galleries. Sources insist the pitch itself escaped major structural harm. Yet the timeline is tight, and those involved in the repair work concede it is a race to get everything in place before the ISL kicks off. One possibility being discussed is allowing matches to be hosted at Salt Lake with a restricted crowd capacity initially.
AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey said a Governing Council Board will be formed to oversee both the ISL and I-League, and that panel will decide venues and fixtures. "The Kolkata derby being shifted out of Salt Lake is just unimaginable," said senior East Bengal official Debabrata Sarkar.