Shatadru Dutt from Rishra with a degree in economics and ex-investment banker creds, fancies himself to be a sports contractor par excellence. He has previously managed to bring in football stars like Cafu, Ronaldinho, Bebeto, Maradona, and even Emiliano Martinez to Kolkata. This year, for months, he'd hustled sponsors and inked deals to land Lionel Messi, cozying up to political circles for procedural smoothness.
Gifting mementos to netas eventually bought him goodwill, and on 13 December, Dutt's efforts bore fruit when Messi landed in the City of Joy, where he has millions of die-hard fans. He had already started dreaming about his next big gig, bringing in Cristiano Ronaldo next to Kolkata.
The chance of any such event is now low Dutt is currently in a 14 days' court-mandated police custody following the Messi visit fiasco. Kolkata, known to be the Mecca of Indian football, wanted to roll out the red carpet for Leo Messi. Instead, it tripped over its own feet. While Hyderabad and Mumbai pulled off smooth welcomes for the Argentine legend, Salt Lake Stadium turned into a site of pure chaos on 13 December. After three days, scars of the Saturday night frenzy are still raw and visible across the Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Krirangan (VYBK) where fans erupted in rage and stadium gear worth crores was trashed. The fallout forced West Bengal Sports Minister Aroop Biswas to quit by Tuesday afternoon.
But why couldn't Kolkata match the other cities? Who's really to blame here—the organisers, the politicians, or a collective screw-up that has left a stain on the city's pride?
TMC Messed Up
Messi touched down in Kolkata on Saturday midnight along with Rodrigo De Paul and Luis Suarez. The plan was simple: a fan meet-and-greet at Yuva Bharati the next morning, following a virtual statue-revealing event.
Tickets, priced from Rs 3,853 to a steep Rs 14,750 for the event, had sold out weeks ago. By 10:30 am, the 65,000-seat stadium was jam-packed. Messi's car rolled in, and that's when things started unravelling.
As soon as he stepped out, a swarm of ruling party leaders, ministers and other influential people closed in like a human barricade. From the stands, fans couldn't catch a single glimpse.
Aroop Biswas was right there, glued to Messi's side, along with a bunch of Trinamool Congress (TMC) bigwigs—even the chief minister's family. Messi tried to play it cool, waving hands, towards fans, keeping his head down. But with no clear view of their hero, the crowd's patience snapped.
Just 17 minutes in, Messi left and rushed towards the airport. That's when the stadium exploded. Furious fans stormed the pitch. Iron gates buckled under kicks and shoves. Water bottles flew from the galleries like missiles.
Goal nets got ripped to shreds. Few people set fire to the VIP lounge sofas. Others walked off with equipment like it was a flea market haul. The whole mess evoked ugly memories of the 5 August looting of Bangladesh's Ganabhaban after Sheikh Hasina fled in 2024. The police stood by like silent spectators.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was slated to be there too. But as news of the meltdown hit, her security scrapped the plan. She took to social media that evening: I am deeply disturbed and shocked by the mismanagement witnessed today at Salt Lake Stadium...".
But it was not enough to heal the wound. Demands for Biswas's resignation flooded timelines from Saturday itself. Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari wrote, "They paid heavily for steeply priced tickets for a glimpse of Lionel Messi, but instead got crammed like herd of cattle and watched in desperation as Ministers' entourages hijacked the event, blocking views, and turning the ground into their exclusive VIP durbar."
Shamik Bhattacharya called it a "ruling party loot," with netas turning the event into their personal photo opportunity.
Fans Recount the Chaos
Eyewitnesses say the VIP huddle was impenetrable. Messi, Suarez, and De Paul never got a moment in the open. Recently resigned Sports Minister Arup Biswas, known to be close to the Chief Minister, repeatedly tried to embrace Messi closely. He is seen refusing to accept Messi's security guards order.
24-year-old Anwita Dutta was in D-Wing, Ramp 28 of the stadium on that day. She told The Quint:
"The event started late. We knew Messi had limited time, but even in those minutes, we didn't see him once. No penalty shootouts, no meet-and-greet—nothing we paid for. If he'd just circled the stadium with his guards, it wouldn't have turned into this disaster. But leaders, security, Dutt's crew—they boxed him in. The ministers wouldn't let go for a second. They were yanking him around for selfies. If I have to watch the event on a screen, why not just stay home and catch it on TV? I spent Rs 4,705, and got zilch. It was hard earned money. Wouldn't you be pissed?"Anwita Dutta
Anwita added that fans kept hoping he'd return. When word spread he'd slipped out the dugout, the vandalism began. "There weren't enough cops to handle 65,000 hyped-up people. They were too busy babysitting VIP security," she added.
Pratik Mitra, 35, had seen Diego Maradona live in 2008. Despite chaos that had ensued that time too, fans had got a proper glimpse of the footballer. But this time, Mitra narrated, "I zoomed in on my phone camera and caught...a black head bobbing. That's it. We knew he was there, but that was our assumption only. We hardly saw him".
Why Was Kolkata Not Prepared?
The catastrophe has ignited several questions about the lack of preparedness among authorities. Kolkara Police had the information of Messi and even Shah Rukh Khan's arrival for weeks. Why did they not arrange any mock crowd-management drill?
Sources say that six Deputy Inspector General-ranked officials, eight Superintendent of Police (SPs), and 2,000 personnel were on site. But the call was for private security inside. A police officer, unwilling to publish his name, said, "We remained silent to avoid a stampede."
Fair point as it may seemingly be, the police clearly didn't see this coming. After the pandemonium, state police finally moved in. Shatadru Dutt, the organiser of the event, was detained from Messi's flight. Kolkata Police DGP Rajeev Kumar, told reporters the same evening, "Organisers have committed in writing to refunds. We'll oversee it." But how? That's still a black hole.
Saturday's mess laid bare how politics has poisoned West Bengal's sports scene. Analysts say the TMC needed Dutt's star power as much as he needed their nod.
The dream spectacle was: Mamata sharing the stage with Messi, SRK, and 65,000 fans. But no one in the upper echelons of government could sniff out the risks.
Witnessing the disaster, damage control kicked in fast from the higher authorities. Mamata Banerjee formed a probe panel under ex-judge Asim Kumar Roy that same night.By Monday, CCTV footage led to five arrests—Basudev Das, Sanjay Das, Abhijit Das, Shubhrapratim De, and Gaurav Basu. They're facing charges of obstructing officials and assault; remanded till 22 December by a Barasat court. By Tuesday, it recommended a special investigation team (SIT). In that context, Aroop Biswas tendered his resignation straight to the CM—calling her "Didi" in the note. Mamata accepted the resignation subsequently.
But for fans, the response is too little too late, and the much-awaited visit has left nothing but a bitter taste in their mouth and outrage galore against "VIP culture".
Photographer Tirthendu Bandyopadhyay, 30, who had skipped a paid gig elsewhere to catch a glimpse of his idol said, "It felt like they grabbed us by the collar, slammed our faces into the dirt, and said, 'You don't deserve to see Messi up close because you're nobodies—no connections, no pull. We're just regular folks scraping by.' Messi never let us down in his life. Yesterday didn't change that. But those who caged him? They'll never get how much it hurt".
(Arka Deb is an independent journalist reporting on politics and current affairs from Kolkata, West Bengal.)