Chennai: Are sportspeople ripping off the system by cornering the incentives paid to coaches? At least one recent instance of such activity has come to light in a famous athlete receiving money from her coach, a payment made from incentive award presented to the coach by the government in recognition of the sportswoman’s international achievement.
Suspicions of such a scheme prevailing were raised recently when national squash players named people as coaches who were not part of the formal system of the Squash rackets Federation of India. As DC found out, there is at least one clear case of such money being routed back to the athlete by a person she had named as her coach and may have been in charge of her training and helped her win a Commonwealth silver medal in Australia earlier this year.
Bank documents in possession of DC show that while the person named as coach received Rs 9 lakh as incentive for training a medal winner, he had given a cheque for Rs 8.5 lakhs in the name of the athlete soon after receiving the incentive from the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu.
A sports official pointed out that the irony is the sportswoman is Dipika Pallikal, squash champion, who was recently named as the representative of Asia in the “CGF Atheltes Advisory Commission” and also made the “Brand Ambassador” for the Indian Olympic Association. She was the beneficiary named in the cheque that her personal coach A. Parthiban issued within 10 days of receiving the award of Rs 9 lakhs from SDAT in April 2018.
Speaking to DC, Susan Pallikal, Dipika’s mother, said it is demeaning to call this a scam as this is nothing but sharing of prize money among coaches.
“This is how we would like to honour all those who helped Dipika like mental conditioning coach, physical trainer and personal coach. The money was shared among all those who contributed to Dipika’s success - Mugda Bavare, Ashraf Kharagi, Suresh and Parthiban. This is the method we have been following for a few years now, since 2014 anyway.”
“Why would we take the money by cheque if we wanted to hide the transaction,” Susan asked. She also pointed out that SRFI coach Cyrus Poncha, who was with Sourav Ghosal and got the incentive award in 2014, split the money with Dalip Tripati and Malcolm Willstrop.
Legal opinion points out that these payments are not illegal as it is up to a recipient what he does with his award money. While such practices may not be illegal, whether they are ethical as it is tantamount to playing around with India’s money paid by governments as sports incentive is a question that has to be addressed.
The sports official pointed out that such award money being routed to a sportswoman like Dipika may not be an isolated incident. He said it was being observed that many multi-discipline athletes were giving strange names of coaches and in some cases even giving the name of their family members as coach in order to claim the coach’s incentive money for themselves.
There is tremendous support for Indian sportspeople these days among the public as well as in the form of incentives from governments at the Centre and States. “But it’s a pity if such practices are prevailing,” the official concluded.
In a letter to the DG of SAI, the president of SRFI Debendranath Sarangi, noted that while the federation recognises and acknowledged the medals won it was unable to certify the name of the coach mentioned by the players in their application. The letter goes on to say, “Dipika Pallikal Karthik - won silver medals in mixed doubles and women’s doubles event respectively. In the application received from her, it is mentioned that her coach is Mr A. Parthiban. The Federation is not aware that Dipika is coached by A. Parthiban. To the best of our knowledge when in Chennai, Dipika Pallikal Karthik trains at the Indian Squash Academy. Mr Parthiban is not a coach at the Squash Academy.” “Sourav Ghosal won a silver medal in the mixed doubles event. He has mentioned his coach as Mr. Digpal Singh Ranawat. However, the Federation is not aware who Mr Digpal Singh Ranawat is and hence we are unable to certify him,” the federation letter read.
