New Delhi, Sep 28 (IANS) The Indian cue sports officials Friday joined the chorus lamenting the lack of recognition for its players, including world champions, describing the treatment as “step motherly”.
Reacting to the nationwide showering of awards and cash rewards, running into millions of rupees, for the Twenty20 World Championships-winning cricket team, the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI) wanted to know why the recently crowned world billiards champions Pankaj Advani and Rupesh Shah were ignored.
“Cue sports only a few days back won two world titles in billiards – Pankaj Advani (time format) and Rupesh Shah (frame format) – at the world championship in Singapore,” said BSFI in a statement.
“To the utter surprise of the fraternity, no reward has yet been announced by the centre (government), state or employers of players. Leave alone red carpet welcome, the respective governments, employers have not even sent a congratulatory letter to them, leaving players high and dry with this kind of treatment.”
BSFI said the cue sports exponents deserve the similar treatment as cricketers.
“Yet, the government at the centre and states fail to recognise the performance of the players from other sports disciplines, who have participated and won at world level tournaments and are giving step motherly treatment to these players, who deserve same treatment as that of cricket players.”
On the return of Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s team, the players were felicitated at a public function at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai Wednesday and the cricket board gave Rs.8 million to each one besides the millions they got from other sources.
The President and the Prime Minister congratulated the cricket team, while there was none from them when Karnataka’s Advani and Gujarat’s Shah won the world titles in Singapore this month.
Incidentally, both Karnataka and Gujarat had also ignored their players who were part of the Asia Cup-winning men’s hockey team and cricketers who comprised the Twenty20 team.
While some hockey players from Karnataka and the national coach Joaquim Carvalho said they would go on hunger strike to highlight the indifferent attitude of the state government, Gujarat ignored the Pathan brothers, Irfan and Yusuf.
Both states eventually had to announce cash prizes for the players after the media highlighted the issue.
“It is quite unfair to all who toil hard to bring the laurels for the country. It is high time to reconsider and to frame a guideline or a policy by the government so that players do not feel orphaned,” said the BSFI statement.
“After all, a world champion in any sports discipline is a world champion.”
It said that there should be “recognition and honour” to the deserving world champions.
“Every sportsperson who has done his country proud deserves recognition, cash rewards and awards to keep their spirits high, else the other disciplines will die an unnatural death.”