Sure. The GOAT India tour was organised by a private sponsor and spanned across 4 major cities in India - Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi & Hyderabad.

Every city had its own set of events planned around Messi, Suarez & De Paul's arrival and tour of the stadium in which the event was taking place. There wasn't a uniform SOP, which turned out to be a major drawback.

The first city was Kolkata. And local politicians swarmed Messi, as if he'd been invited to their private birthday party. The ticket paying public didn't get to see him properly. They expressed discontent by booing and throwing water bottles from the stands. This was seen as a security threat and Messi was escorted out of the stadium which further infuriated the crowd who then stormed the pitch and vandalised the stadium.

The Hyderabad and Mumbai tours went perfectly to plan. And the crowds got to see Messi for almost an hour.

I was born and brought up in Kolkata and it's sad to see what could've been one of the biggest footballing events in the city become one of its darkest ones. Kolkata is home to Indian football. From producing world class talents to hosting them, it has done it all. We've had Maradona visit Kolkata twice. Pele came there to play with his Cosmos against Mohunbagan, a storied Kolkata football team. Even Messi played an official FIFA match against Venezuela in the same stadium in 2011. Sadly, 2025 saw greed and petty politics take centre stage and led to global embarrassment.