Rescheduling of national games will cost Goa government a penalty of 10 crore, says IOA

01/31/2019

The Indian Olympic Association issued a warning to the government of Goa that the latter will have to pay a penalty of Rs 10 crore if they fail to host the 36th National Games in March. Earlier, Goa government expressed its inability to host the games citing the upcoming elections and other issues.

The fate of the already delayed 36th National Games which were scheduled to be held between March 30 and April 14 is yet to be decided after Goa government officials declared their inability to host the event on the given dates in a letter to the Indian Olympic Association. However, the IOA made it clear on Wednesday that if the Goan government cannot organise the event then they will have to pay a fine of Rs 10 crore.

The IOA wrote a letter to National Games Organising committee on Wednesday which stated, “In case of a request from the NGOC for the postponement in the hosting of the Games from the previously agreed upon dates, the same will be reviewed by the IOA leadership and IOA Executive Council. However, the request for postponement will attract a penalty of Rs 10 crore payable to IOA.”

The officials from Goa had earlier cited the upcoming elections, security, and volunteer related issues as major obstacles for hosting the national championship. The National Games were originally planned for 2016 but have been rescheduled several times. It was scheduled to be held from March 30 to April 14 but the Goa government has now proposed date sometime between October-November 2019.

But the IOA was not willing to listen to anything the Goa government was saying as all these issues were known when the final decision to host the national tournament was taken in October last year. The IOA had already decided to allot the next editions to Chhattisgarh (2019), Uttarakhand (2020) and Meghalaya (2022) after Goa.