Funding concerns put SA Games prep on hold
The Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA) will most probably delay preparations for the upcoming South Asian (SA) Games until the government allocates the necessary funds. The BOA has already submitted a whopping Tk 56 crore budget to prepare for and participate in three meets -- the SA Games, Bangladesh Games and Olympic Games.
The 13th SA Games was initially scheduled to start in March but hosts Nepal deferred the multi-sport event by five months, possibly till September but nothing has been confirmed yet.
Bangladesh had prepared for one year ahead of the 10th SA Games in Dhaka, where they bagged 99 medals, 18 of which were gold. However, in the next edition in India, Bangladesh failed miserably as they won only three gold medals on the back of short-term training.
“Before, we began preparation for the SA Games with our own funds and adjusted it when the government released the funds. But this time around, we don't have enough funds to run a training camp for the SA Games. So, we can't start the SA Games training until the government allocates the training funds,” said BOA secretary general Syed Shahed Reza yesterday.
“However, the good news is that we met with the finance minister and sports minister yesterday [Sunday] and got a positive response from them about allocating the funds for training,” informed Reza.
Reza also informed that hosts Nepal have yet to declare a possible schedule for the SA Games and that even the BOA is not getting a proper response from the Nepal Olympic Association.
“If Nepal do not inform about the schedules for the SA Games within one or two months, we will not participate; rather we will stage Bangladesh Games in the latter part of the year or early next year and thus start training, subject to the availability of funds,” continued Reza.
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