Kolkata: Dispelling fears of Friday's match between Atletico de Kolkata and Mumbai City FC being cancelled because of the Chennai floods, the Indian Super League (ISL) on Thursday announced Friday's game would go ahead as scheduled.
The Mumbai City and Chennaiyin FC teams travelled by road from Chennai to the Tirupati Air Base and are scheduled to reach Mumbai on Thursday night by a chartered flight.
"Further, the Mumbai City FC will now take a morning flight tomorrow (Friday), i.e 4th December to reach Kolkata in time to participate in Match #54 with Atletico de Kolkata, while Chennaiyin FC will head towards Pune for their Match #55 with FC Pune City scheduled on 5th December," said an ISL release.
"Earlier, due to uncertainties over the last 24 hours and facing the Force Majeure situation, the ISL had offered Mumbai City FC a future reserve day to play the game. However the management of Mumbai City FC insisted on having the match as scheduled, as they didn't want to disappoint fans in Kolkata who had bought tickets in advance."
Earlier, the game was in doubt due to the situation in Chennai.
The pre-match media conference scheduled for Thursday was postponed by the ISL committee citing unavoidable circumstances.
The airport in Chennai has felt the effects of the rain and, according to reports, with it still flooded, no flights were taking off or landing.
There was a proposal to get the Mumbai franchise here via a military aircraft but it has not happened yet.