Sports & Coronavirus: Sporting federations feel the pinch of reduced corporate funding


Sports & Coronavirus: Sporting federations feel the pinch of reduced corporate funding

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Not all the National sports federation depend on the government to run the show but some of them need help to get the corporate funding from the government. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the amount of funding has been reduced. Except for the BCCI, all national sports bodies get funds from the ministry under the Scheme of Assistance to National Sports Federations.

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In this year, the budget set for them and collected Rs 245 crore. It covers almost everything participation in international tournaments, exposure trips abroad, athletes training equipment and hosting of national and international events in the country.

Every year the NSFs have to submit the report because to get there share from this fund. But many of them don’t depend on the government. Some private-sector gives funding to them for organising tournaments on a bigger scale.

Some of the sports federations like Cycling Federation of India and the Paralympic Committee of India are expecting a reduction in the fund. However, Indian Weightlifting Federation and Athletics Federation of India will not be affected at all.

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The private sector is hit hard and it will have an impact on corporate funding in sports,” CFI Chairman Onkar Singh told. He gets the fund from the Honda Motors which is more than 1 crore annually.

“We will know more about this event depending on how this pandemic unfolds. All the international events have been postponed as of now and UCI will take a decision in June on the future course of action,” Singh said.

Covid-19 pandemic has postponed all sports events and international federations are hoping to restart in the second half of the year.

PCI Secretary-General Gurusharan Singh also said that “Yes, there will definitely be reduction of CSR funding to PCI in current financial year due to severe economic slowdown. As most of the corporate houses have already exhausted their CSR funds due to their generous contribution to the PM CARES fund, the contribution to sports bodies will not be a priority.”

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PCI has already chalked out its financial plan for the year 2020-21 very meticulously since Tokyo Paralympic Games are now to be held in 2021 and therefore we hope to sail through,” he added.

PCI gets the fund from hero motors and Citibank global. Last year they faced the problem related to receiving the funding. We don’t get corporate funding, all our activities and events are conducted from the funds we get from the sports ministry,” IWLF Secretary General Sahdev Yadav said.