Bengaluru, Dec 7 (PTI) Former athlete Reeth Abrahamhas alleged that football activities at the Kanteerava stadiumwere hindering training activities of athletes and urged theCentre and Karnataka government to look into the matter.
"This is an urgent appeal to Karnataka Chief Ministerand the Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, to resolvethe matter with fairness, allowing athletes to train inKanteerava Stadium without hindrance," Abraham wrote in apetition posted on change.org.
"For the past three years, the stadium is being usedby Bangalore Football Club (BFC), a private entity for soccerpurposes," she said.
The stadium is being remodelled to suit footballers,the Arjuna awardee alleged.
The athletes also have been restricted access to thestadium and barred from training on the turf, which is used todo a lot of exercises as continuous training on synthetictrack increases possibilities of injury, Abraham said.
"Karnataka, once an athletics powerhouse has lost itsstanding at the national level due to the insensitive andthoughtless decisions of the government sports officials,"she said.
"Their only concern of late has been to generate fundsrather than encourage athletes to perform better," she said.
Top athletes like Ashwini Nachappa, Pramila Ayappa,Kenneth Powell, Bobby George, S D Eashan, Satish Pillay aswell as national coaches, in the past, had made severalrepresentations on the issue, but in vain.
The stadium is hosting Indian Super League matchesthis year and in the past, was used for Indian League andinternational matches. PTI BDNBN.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.