NEW DELHI: With the World Team Qualification tournament for the Olympics set to take place in Gondomar in Portugal from January 22 to 26, the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) had decided to send players to Dusseldorf, Germany, for a one-week camp from January 13. However, certain complications have emerged regarding the national camp.
In the ACTC (Annual calendar for tours and competitions), the budget for the camp was already fixed but since then, it has emerged that the money allotted is not enough. A total of 10 players (five men and five women) will be in attendance along with two coaches and a couple of support staff. They will travel to Portugal straight from the camp in Germany.
The players who are part of the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) — G Sathiyan, A Sharath Kamal, Manika Batra, Manav Thakkar, Archana Kamath — will utilise funds from that programme to travel. From that, they will save a part to meet the travel expenses of coaches Soumyadeep Roy and Arup Basak, other than Hirak Bagchi and Amarjit Singh, who are part of the support staff.
It is regarding the other five that the problem remains. The TTFI has been in talks with Sports Authority of India while also considering a couple of other options. Harmeet Desai, Anthony Amalraj, Sutirtha Mukherjee, Ayhika Mukherjee and Madhurika Patkar are the other members of the squad.
If the budgetary constraints can’t be addressed, then the TTFI will have to pay from its own pockets. The other option is to adjust the budget with some other competition mentioned in the ACTC. That is, send the team to Germany and scrap some other tour lined up for the future.
“The camp has gone over-budget but we are hopeful of finding a solution. We are in constant touch with SAI and all options are open. It is likely that the budget will be readjusted since this is a crucial competition for our players. What that means is for some other event, we will send fewer entries from our side. In case all these cannot be agreed upon, we will pay for the five from our own coffers,” a top TTFI official told this newspaper. It has been learnt that initially, the TTFI had requested for `20 lakh for the Germany trip, where the hosts will charge the Indians 80 euros per head for a day.
The players are not impressed with what all is going on. Indian table tennis has shown signs of improvement in recent years and they feel that such problems will affect their planning and preparation in a crucial year which includes the Tokyo Olympics.
“On one hand, our rankings are going up and on the other, such incidents are taking place. We need to focus on our game rather than keep thinking of money matters. We hope that no delay happens in conducting the camp in Germany,” said one of the players on condition of anonymity.