Mumbai: Every evening, the Neville D’Souza Football Ground in Bandra West looks like a small but stubborn argument for football in a city that keeps running out of space. Children in club jerseys chase loose balls under floodlights. Coaches shout instructions from the sidelines. Parents wait near the fence. This turf is where much of Mumbai’s football calendar squeezes in: youth teams, senior sides, women’s squads and local clubs.
Now, that ground, named after an Indian Olympic hero, is at the centre of a civic battle. As with everything in Mumbai, everything comes down to land. Who does the land belong to? The answer to the question will determine the future of football in a cricket-crazy city.
Spread across 8,450 sq. m., the Neville D’Souza Football Ground is one of Mumbai’s few full-sized football venues. It belongs to MHADA (Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority) and sits on Mumbai’s prime real estate — the Bandra Reclamation. The plot has been used on lease by the Mumbai Football Association (MFA) for organised league football matches.
The blow for the city’s football community came on 24 June, when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s improvements committee approved a proposal to amend Mumbai’s Development Plan (DP) 2034, changing the reservation of the Neville D’Souza Football Ground from “Sports Ground and Playground” to a “Convention Centre.” The committee’s proposal is expected to go before the BMC General Body for final approval next week. The threat of losing the turf triggered immediate resistance, from the ground to the Maharashtra Assembly.
On 28 June, Mumbai’s football community gathered at the Neville D’Souza ground to protest the proposed conversion. Players, parents, coaches, residents, and MFA members came together to demand that the ground remain reserved for football. Among them were former India internationals—including Steven Dias, Mohammed Yusuf Ansari, Godfrey Pereira, Santosh Kashyap and Aqeel Ansari—as well as politicians such as Congress MP Varsha Gaikwad.
This Wednesday, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP-Ajit Pawar) MLC Zeeshan Siddique raised the issue in the monsoon assembly, saying that the convention centre should be built elsewhere and the Bandra ground kept for “the country’s footballers and Mumbai’s footballers”.
Later, he posted on X: “We are always complaining about how the Indian football team doesn’t qualify for the FIFA World Cup… How will our footballers play in the top flight of football if we take away their grounds?”
We must protect Neville D’Souza football ground.
In the Maharashtra assembly I requested the government to make sure we protect the football ground in Bandra West used by thousands of footballers. We are always complaining about how the Indian football team doesn’t qualify for… pic.twitter.com/lFxNevsSEW
— Zeeshan Siddique (@zeeshanBabaS) July 2, 2026
Congress’s Jyoti E Gaikwad also brought up the issue in the Assembly and on X, saying, “Neville D’souza ground is the only ground in Mumbai that is as per FIFA standards.”
An outpouring of pleas has come from parents and players alike on social platforms.
“There is one piece of land which has been given to the children to play football. Leave it alone. Do not tamper with it. Let the dreams of the future of the country survive,” said Imran Kapadia, father of a 13-year-old girl who has been playing football at the ground, at the protest.
Also Read: Can Mumbai local trains shut their doors? A killing revives debate over a century-old habit
A link to India’s Olympic glory
The fight over the ground has also revived the memory of Indian footballer Neville D’Souza himself, and the distance between Indian football’s past promise and its present struggles.
“This ground is not only for football. It holds memories. It holds history,” said Devan, a teenager at the protest. “The ground is a piece of emotion that every footballer would want to preserve, conserve. So, save Neville D’Souza.”
Ace striker Neville D’Souza gave Indian football one of its greatest moments. At the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, he scored a hat-trick against hosts Australia, securing a 4-2 quarter-final win for India. He became the first Asian to score a hat-trick in Olympic football and finished the tournament as joint-top scorer in the men’s competition, with four goals.
India eventually lost to Yugoslavia 1-4 in the semi-finals and finished fourth, but that campaign remains the country’s best Olympic football finish. D’Souza began his career in field hockey before switching to football and playing for Goan SC (Goan Sports Club). He later moved to Tata SC (Tata Sports Club). D’Souza died in 1980.
The Bandra ground was christened with D’Souza’s name by the MFA, then known as the Mumbai District Football Association (MDFA), in 2015. Built on MHADA-owned land leased to the MFA in 2011, it was upgraded in 2018 with a FIFA-standard artificial turf by the MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority), measuring 106×72 metres, the dimensions used for international matches. The ground became a major addition to Mumbai football, reducing pressure on older pitches such as Cooperage Ground in Colaba and St Xavier’s Ground in Parel.
Former India footballer and coach Santosh Kashyap posted a reel on Instagram ahead of the protest, linking the fight for the ground to the wider crisis in Indian football.
“Indian football is already in a dire state. Mumbai football is also in a dire state. The Cooperage Ground (Colaba) has become an education centre with academies playing. The ground in Andheri hosts ISL (Indian Super League). There is only one ground left where 600 teams play, from age group to senior to women,” he said.
The Neville D’Souza football ground hosts more than 900 MFA matches in a regular season, including senior men’s and women’s competitions. It is also used for the Yuva President League and by AIFF (All India Football Federation)-accredited Mumbai clubs for youth league fixtures.
“Nearly 10,000 footballers use the ground every year,” Ryann Menezes, vice president of the Mumbai Football Association, told ThePrint. We organise official football leagues across various age categories in our Premier League. Primarily, this is the main ground where 80-90 per cent of our matches are held. Even last year, this was the ground where we held most of the games.”
The lease, which Menezes said had been renewed every two to three years since 2011, expired in 2024.
“We did write a formal letter to MHADA a few times, requesting to renew the lease. We were not at all informed about the change in the reservation of the ground and we were really kept in the dark,” he said.
Also Read: As Mumbai sets climate budget at Rs 20,730 cr, 43% of BMC spending aligns with Climate Action Plan
Turf battles
Back when the Shiv Sena was still united, Aaditya Thackeray had taken close charge of the ground, from tabling the resolution to name it after Neville D’Souza in 2015 to announcing three years later that Mumbai finally had a turf where “girls and boys can play for gold”.
Last week, Thackeray, now president of the MFA, accused the BJP-led state government and BMC of “crushing sports”, claiming the move would benefit contractors and builders while depriving young players of a playground.
If you are wondering about why India isn’t playing the @FIFAWorldCup , despite the population crossing 1.4 billion people, and why countries with much smaller populations than our smallest cities are playing, stop wondering:
🚨 The bjp regime in the @mybmc , backed by orders…
— Aaditya Thackeray (@AUThackeray) June 26, 2026
But BJP corporator Swapna Mhatre, a member of the BMC improvements committee, says the proposal for the Neville D’Souza football ground is being misrepresented.
The committee was correcting a land reservation in Mumbai’s Development Plan 2034 and not taking over the ground, according to her.
“It is just a correction of the reservation,” she told ThePrint, adding that the plot’s ownership and layout were never decided by the BMC. “The ownership of the land and its layout have been declared by the government.”
MHADA, as the land-owning agency, will decide the final use of the plot, she said, while the BMC’s role is limited to how the plot is marked in the DP.
To explain the correction, Mhatre pointed to the plot’s history. It was reserved for a convention centre in the 1983 Development Plan. Over time, it was encroached upon, with people putting up huts on the public land. That was when Ashish Shelar — now a BJP minister, and then associated with the MFA — intervened.
“When minister Ashish Shelarji, who was the head of the Mumbai Football Association, realised (at the time), that this public land is being used by encroachers, he built walls around it and it was temporarily being used as a football ground,” Mhatre said.
In 2015, the reservation was temporarily changed to public open space, Mhatre said, suggesting that there was no provision to use it as a football ground for perpetuity.
“The land belongs to MHADA. If they want a convention centre on that land, there is no deadline for them to start the project. When built, the exhibition centre will generate employment for the people of Mumbai,” she added.
Mhatre also noted that committee’s stand was that if a playground reservation had been wrongly marked, the civic body should compensate for it elsewhere.
“We have also clearly stated to the BMC general body to search for land that was reserved as a playground and turn it into an international level football ground for the people,” she said.
For footballers, the Bandra ground has become symbolic. It’s about the future of the sport itself in the city.
Neville D’Souza’s son Nigel was also part of the protest on Sunday. In an emotional message, he reinforced that the ground represented more than one venue.
“This is bad… We will always stay at 139 ranking. We won’t come up. These children need to play, they need the ground. When we played young, we had grounds to play. Now I look around, there’s no ground at all. Please save Neville D’Souza ground,” he said.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)