Kolhapur city gets ready for football World Cup

Kolhapur: With barely a couple of days left for the 2026 FIFA World Cup to kick-off, football fever has gripped the lanes and chowks of Kolhapur city.The opening game is slated for Thursday in the American Continent- with most matches to be held in the United States of America and equal number of matches in Canada and Mexico. The final will be held on July 19.Life size cutouts, banners and wall paintings of players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Neymar Jr and Kylian Mbappe are on display across the city.“We are planning to erect a 40-feet cutout of CR7 (Ronaldo) at Bindu Chowk. The design is ready, just waiting to get the permissions,” Viraj Potdar, a CR7 fan. He, along with 25 others, runs social media groups with 20,000 dedicated fans of the Portugal captain.The WhatsApp group of dedicated CR7 fans was started in 2014 and now there are 10 to 12 groups, several Instagram accounts with followers from Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara and Pune.For Messi fans, it is double delight, a World Cup and his birthday on June 24. “We are also going to erect a life-size cutout of Messi. Also to celebrate his birthday we are going to provide meals and sports kits to a school for visibly challenged students,” Messi fan Pratik Badame said.Apart from groups of dedicated fans, the Talims (clubs) here are also dedicated supporters of the teams. The talims are planning to live stream key matches of the World Cup.“Once the group matches are done and dusted and the real rivalry starts, we are going to put up a screen and live stream these matches,” an official of a talim mandal said.Sales of football jerseys are also skyrocketing. “Jerseys of Brazil, Portugal and Argentina are in demand due to the World Cup. We custom print the jerseys as per the demand of customers. Among players, France’s Mbappe jersey is catching on. Sale of other football merchandise is also high,” Omkar Mali, owner of a football merchandise shop from Mangalwar Peth, said.The bakery shops in Kolhapur are planning to bake World Cup themed cakes for birthdays, while ice-cream shops plan to give complimentary scoops to the customers who are equally football crazy.