The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) has come under fire for directing junior wrestlers appearing for the Under-17 and Under-20 trials for the freestyle and Greco-Roman categories to pay Rs 1000 as a registration fee.
The freestyle trials will be organised in Sonipat, Haryana on May 17 while for the Greco-Roman category will be held on the same day in Patiala.
The aspirants have to pre-register online and submit the fee to complete the registration process. The last day to complete registration is May 15.
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“This is a wrong step. How can you charge fee just to appear for trials,” Bajrang Punia’s coach Sujeet Mann said to Tribune.
“Imagine the young wrestler will be travelling with family or coach, where money will be spent on travelling, food and accommodation. Besides, there is no guarantee that the wrestler will win a place,” he added.
The winner of the U-17 trials will represent India at the 2023 U-17 Asian Championships & at the 2023 U-17 World Championships.
Whereas, the winner of the U-23 trials will get the opportunity to participate in the 2023 Asian Championships. The top four wrestlers will automatically qualify for the World Championship, trials which will be held on a latter date.
IOA appoints a two-member ad hoc committee to take charge of WFI
The IOA has appointed an ad hoc panel consisting of Bhupinder Singh Bajwa and Suma Shirur to take charge of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) operations from immediate effect.
IOA joint secretary, Kalyan Chaubey, sent out a circular, also keeping the Sports Ministry in the loop, directing that all the financial and administrative roles will be handled by the panel.
“With the ad hoc committee being in existence, the outgoing office-bearers of the WFI shall have no role with respect to the exercise of any function of the NSF for discipline of wrestling and shall not perform any administrative, financial, and regulatory or any other role,” Chaubey wrote.
“The outgoing office-bearers of the WFI are directed to hand over all official documents, including website management, financial instruments, login details for making entries for the participation of the Indian sportspersons in international events etc, to the ad hoc committee forthwith,” he added.
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