CHENNAI: This doesn’t augur well for sportspersons. The proposed merger between State Bank of India and its associate banks, which may take place on April 1, has created a flutter among hundreds of sportspersons employed by smaller banks. The biggest fallout is that the associate banks have stopped recruiting in the sports quota for over a year now. What’s worse, players working with the banks are uncertain about their future.
SBI’s five associates—State Bank of Travancore (SBT), State Bank of Mysore (SBM), State Bank of Patiala (SBP), State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) and State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur—have a significant presence in sports, mainly in south India, especially in football and cricket. SBT’s football teams once played in the country’s top-tier, and are reigning Kerala champions. Its cricket team is a big player too.
SBM also fields a cricket team, with one current player being Sreenath Aravind, who represented India in T20s. SBP’s cricket team has Punjab Ranji star Siddharth Kaul in its ranks, while its table tennis teams are Punjab champions. SBH’s football and cricket teams play in the top leagues in Hyderabad.
SBT’s chief manager (sports) GR Jayakrishnan told The Sunday Standard that while he is hoping existing teams will not be disbanded soon, hiring under sports quota has stalled. “We last had recruitment in 2015. Because of the merger we have stopped it,” he said.
Sanmeet Singh, secretary, Central Sports Committee of SBP, is worried. “This’ll affect all teams, and I don’t know what the future holds for players. We had a policy that 1 percent of all recruitment will be under sports quota.”