Mysuru:  The sportspersons, who practice daily at the football grounds in the University of Mysore’s (UoM) sports complex are irked with the District Administration and the University authorities for deciding to utilise the football and the adjacent cricket grounds for erecting stalls for the 83rd Akhila Bharata Kannada Sahitya Sammelana.

The football grounds are abuzz with activity everyday in the mornings and in the evenings, with a large number of footballers practicing. Now they have been deprived of utilising the football grounds for practice since the last one week as huge steel sheds have come up in the grounds.

This activity will go on for another week and the children and the upcoming footballers will be deprived of the opportunity to practice both in the mornings and evenings. This is the only football ground available in city.

Speaking to SOM, Mysore District Football Association Hon. Secretary Manjunath opined that the authorities could have utilised some other place behind the Maharaja’s College grounds for the same instead of utilising the football grounds and cricket grounds. He said that sports infrastructure needs to be utilised for sports purpose only and non-sporting activities should not be encouraged.

The In-charge Director of the Department of Physical Education (DPE), UoM, Dr. P. Kirishniah, said that when asked for permission to utilise the grounds, they objected for the same but the Registrar of the University insisted on giving the same as it is a government-sponsored programme.

The Department of Physical Education, UoM, which had entered into an MoU with Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) for developing the Maharaja’s College Grounds into a turf wicket, have written back to the KSCA to hand over the grounds to the University authorities quashing the MoU as null and void. The KSCA had already spent a sizable amount for the development of the ground and now the MoU stands quashed.

Now the DPE has to make the grounds fit for use after the Sammelana. Already the damage would have been done, and the financial cost involved in re-doing and preparing the grounds will be a huge burden on them.

Cricketers of Mysore University and the Mysore Zone are irked with the non-sporting activity at the Maharaja’s College Grounds, which has a rich tradition of patronising cricketing activity since the olden days.