{"id":21035,"date":"2025-12-13T15:30:32","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T13:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/police-detain-organiser-of-messi-visit-after-indian-fans-rip-up-seats\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:11","slug":"police-detain-organiser-of-messi-visit-after-indian-fans-rip-up-seats","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/police-detain-organiser-of-messi-visit-after-indian-fans-rip-up-seats\/","title":{"rendered":"Police detain organiser of Messi visit after Indian fans rip up seats"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Satadru Dutta, the event&#8217;s chief organiser, has been detained by police, <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">said<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> Rajeev Kumar, Director General of West Bengal police.<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> Messi was scheduled for a 45-minute visit to the stadium, but his appearance lasted just 20 minutes. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Tickets for the event were priced from around $38.65, more than half of the average weekly income in India, but one fan said he had paid $130.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Fans in the Salt Lake stadium in the capital of the Eastern state of West Bengal threw ripped-up seats and other objects onto the field, while several people climbed a fence around the field and hurled objects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;I can&#8217;t believe there was so much mismanagement,&#8221; said Eddie Lal Hmangaihzuala, who had travelled nearly <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">1 500<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> km from Mizoram over two days to attend the event.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;Messi left <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">quickly,<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> I think he felt unsafe. I hardly got a glimpse of him,&#8221; he told <\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Reuters<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">organisers of the<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> tour did not immediately respond to a request for<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> a <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve already detained the main organiser,&#8221; Rajeev Kumar told reporters. &#8220;We&#8217;re taking action so that this mismanagement does not go unpunished.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21036,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-21035","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Lionel Messi's tour of India kicked off chaotically on Saturday as fans threw objects, ripped up seats and invaded the pitch at Kolkata's Salt Lake stadium after the Argentine soccer great made only a brief appearance at a ticketed event.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Lionel Messi's tour of India kicked off chaotically on Saturday as fans threw objects, ripped up seats and invaded the pitch at Kolkata's Salt Lake stadium after the Argentine soccer great made only a brief appearance at a ticketed event.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24854,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21035\/revisions\/24854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}