The Archery Association of India (AAI), re-led by Union Minister Arjun Munda, has inherited an empty treasury after suffering a long ban. The AAI’s treasury does not have a single penny, due to which the Federation has asked the archers to go on trial at their own expense for the selection of the World Cup squad.
The Olympic Games contenders usually have both money and sponsors in the treasury of the sports association, but the Munda-led Archery association does not have a single penny. At the time when the temporary committee was looking after the work of the archery association, the issue also came up that there was no money in the treasure of the union, but liability was incurred on it.
A union official says that accounts of about 60 lakh rupees from the old officials are yet to be accounted for. At present, the Sangh does not have any sponsor from which to raise money.
It is to be noted that because of the lack of money the AAI has called compound archers for trials in Sonepat from 29 February to 2 March to select teams for two World. AAI will hold trails on February 11 to 13 to select team of Recurve Archers for the Junior Asian Championship.
In a letter written by the Archery Association, it has been said that to play in the trials, archers have to make their own living arrangements. AAl has clarified that it will only provide grounds for trials. However, earlier archery association used to pay living expenses for archers for such trials.
This is not the first time archers have been called for a trial at their expense. Earlier, the temporary committee had called the archers for the Olympic trials at ASI Pune for trials at their own expense. However, later the Sports Minister, Kiren Rijiju, announced the cancellation of this order and said that the ministry and Sports Authority of India would bear all the expenses.
The ban on AAI has been removed by the World Archery, but the ban has not been lifted by the Sports Ministry so far. The ministry has banned the association from not following Sports Code.
Although the new association has written to the ministry to follow the sports code, it is still under review. The new association is facing difficulties in raising money due to its ban from the ministry.
