This story is from December 16, 2017

Athletes denied food supplements over payments

Indian athletes, preparing for next year's Commonwealth and Asian Games, are caught in an ego tussle between the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Athletics Federation of India (AFI) over the release of money for food supplements.
Athletes denied food supplements over payments
NEW DELHI: Indian athletes, preparing for next year's Commonwealth and Asian Games, are caught in an ego tussle between the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Athletics Federation of India (AFI) over the release of money for food supplements.
With the CWG in Gold Coast less than four months away, the country's athletes have been deprived of high quality food supplements since April this year. The athletes haven't received the amount needed to procure the supplements due to the SAI blaming AFI for not settling the previous bills to the tune of Rs 10-15 lakh.
This is the amount which had been allocated for the purchase of food supplements, but the federation has feigned ignorance about any such payment released to it.
According to the rules, a throw athlete is entitled for Rs 700 per day to meet his dietary requirements. In the case of sprinters, middle and long-distance runners the amount is fixed at Rs 400 per day.
"This has been affecting our training since food supplements are our primary source of energy. We had been regularly complaining about it to the AFI, but no headways, it seems, has been made in this direction. We (athletes) would only be blamed for our poor show in the upcoming international tournaments, but nobody is looking at the fact that we have been training without these rich diets," a sprinter said on condition of anonymity.
SAI maintains that the bills need to be submitted before new allocation of funds for supplements can be released. "They need to submit the earlier bills to first get the amount reimbursed which was spent to procure the food supplements. Only after settling those bills, we would further process the payment. It can't happen that the federation takes the money from SAI in advance and won't submit bills as to where the money was spent. We also need to maintain some accountability," reacted a SAI official. However, AFI president
Adille Sumariwala was quick to rebut the charges. "Which money is SAI talking about? We have been waiting for the money for months. Also, the national camp started only in September, so how come athletes can say that they haven't been getting the food supplements since April."
"Earlier SAI used to distribute food supplements through the federation. Now it's the federation which has to procure it to distribute it among our campers. AFI has to exercise due diligence as to ascertain whether that particular food product contained any prohibited substance or not. We can't just purchase it from the open market. We have to very careful about it because if an athlete is caught for dope, people would only blame AFI. That's why the delay is happening. And, if it's happening, then the federation is completely fine with it," Sumariwala added. It's been reliably learnt that recently the Sports Ministry directed SAI to release close to Rs 50 lakh to AFI for the procurement of food supplements.
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