Organiser Sat In Same Plane With Lionel Messi After Kolkata Fiasco. Then This Happened
Hours after the Lionel Messi GOAT India Tour 2025 resulted in massive chaos at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on Saturday, organiser Satadru Dutta was arrested by the police.
Hours after the Lionel Messi GOAT India Tour 2025 resulted in massive chaos at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on Saturday, organiser Satadru Dutta was arrested by the police. According to Times of India, Dutta was stopped from leaving the city by the Kolkata Police amid anger over the alleged mismanagement in the event. The organiser accompanied Messi and his Inter Miami teammates to the airport ahead of their next leg of the tour in Hyderabad. However, senior officials at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport intervened after receiving instructions to detain him.
The report stated that Dutta reached the airport at 12:25pm, completed security formalities and boarded the aircraft at 12:40pm. However, the director general of police Rajeev Kumar arrived at the airport around the same time and did not allow Dutta to leave the city amid the ongoing controversy.
Dutta was asked to get off the plane around 1pm and was kept inside a vehicle on the tarmac. He allegedly tried to negotiate with officers and later, even promised to provide a personal bond assuring refunds to all the spectators who were present at the venue for the Messi event.
“He said the fans would be refunded and insisted he needed to travel with the footballers for the rest of the tour. But police made it clear he would not be allowed to leave,” an official present at the airport said.
The private jet finally took off around 2:34pm for Hyderabad with rest of the contingent including Lionel Messi.
Dutta was produced before Bidhannagar Court on Sunday amid tight security and his bail was denied. Bidhannagar court decided to send the arrested Satadru Dutta to police custody for 14 days.
Earlier, Messi's much-hyped visit to the Salt Lake Stadium on Saturday lasted 22 minutes, just enough to underline everything that is wrong in Indian football and the state administration's mismanagement.
What was billed as a historic celebration of the game's greatest icon degenerated into a spectacular breakdown of planning, policing and priorities, as angry fans ran riot at the venue after failing to get even a glimpse of their favourite superstar from Argentina.
(With PTI inputs)
Lionel Messi