The Indian Express
Athletes may get retainership
Tue Nov 30 2010, 02:28 hrs
In the wake of India’s track and field success at the Commonwealth and Asian Games, efforts are on to implement a proposal to provide a monthly retainership to the country’s top-100 athletes.
Like the BCCI, which grades and pays its contracted players on their performance over a 12-month period, the plan mooted at the annual general body meeting of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) proposes to clasify the athletes in five brackets and pay them Rs 1 lakh, Rs 90,000, Rs 80,000, Rs 70,000 and Rs 60,000 per month respectively.
A monitoring committee, which will include Arjuna awardees, will be established to study the performance of athletes and decide who will be put into which grade.
[b]In the past, AFI officials have often found it difficult to attract sponsorship for their athletes.
This time, they have decided to sell the rights to conduct marathons in various cities through a bidding process. AFI officials have been holding discussions with Ernst and Young, a leading consultancy and advisory services company, since July, and the modalities of the bidding process are being worked out and finalised. [/b]
Former sprint champion and AFI vice-president Adille Sumariwalla is confident that AFI’s graded payment to athletes is not a pie in the sky.
“There is huge interest among corporate bodies to be associated with a marathon in terms of sponsorship. We have seen it happening in Mumbai and Delhi.
"Now, the AFI wants to sell the hosting rights to conduct a marathon in a city though a well laid-out and transparent bidding process. The money generated by selling rights to host marathons will be used to pay fees to our top-100 athletes,” Sumariwalla told The Indian Express on Monday.
“Attracting sponsors hasn’t been easy in the past but we are confident that after our good showing in New Delhi and Guangzhou, things will look brighter. A track and field athlete has a career at the highest level which lasts about a decade and we want to ensure our athletes are rewarded for their efforts,” Sumariwalla added.
Guru Malladi, a senior partner in Ernst and Young, said he was confident that there would be a good demand for rights to host marathons in eights cities in India, which also include Tier-II cities.
"We are looking at a series of products we can create through which AFI can generate sponsors. At first we are looking at road-running events but we hope to also help the federation promote field events. The challenge will be to attract local sponsors in the smaller cities. Can we get a fertiliser or seed company to invest money to buy rights to host a marathon in semi-rural centres,”Malladi said.
"We are working with the AFI to develop a transparent bidding process. Of course the success of the IPL is an inspiration but this will be on a smaller scale in terms of money generated and grandeur. After we get the nod from AFI officials to go ahead, we are confident of kicking off the bidding process in four to five months,”he said.