The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) stunned non-affiliated athletes, who are representing India in the Jakarta Asian Games, by asking them to pay for their uniform, training gear, kits, and medal ceremony costume.
Of the 541 aspirants, only 83 (46 men and 37 women) athletes from eight non-affiliated sports, namely- bridge, sports climbing, soft tennis, sepak takraw, sambo, roller skating, pencak silat, and kurash, were selected to represent India.
The two-week Asian Games will start from August 18.
The IOA will, however, sponsor kits for only those federations which are affiliated to them. The Olympic body’s treasurer, Anandeshwar Pandey said “There has to be something that separates the affiliated members from the unaffiliated ones. We had decided in a meeting some time ago that the IOA will bear kitting expenses only for those sports whose federations are our members.”
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According to Indian Express, one of the unaffiliated federation officials said the issue has cropped up because of a clause in IOA’s sponsorship deal. “As per the information we have received, the IOA deal says the sponsors will provide kit only for their affiliated members. Since we are not a part of the IOA, their sponsors will not bear our expenses. Since we are not mainstream sports, our funding isn’t much. But we do not want to put the burden on our athlete. The IOA has said they will inform us of the final decision this week. Hopefully, they will have some mercy on us,” the official added during a meeting in Delhi.
While IOA president, Narinder Batra denied such claim and said “It must be some misunderstanding. There are some specific sports where we have told them to get their kits designed directly from our vendor but we will reimburse each of them.”