Indore, October 1: Closely on the heels of signing a long-term agreement with 11Even Sports, the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) has inked an all-compassing partnership pact with HVR Sports Inc., here today.
The agreement signed between TTFI president Prabhat Chandra Chaturvedi and Harshavardhan Reddy, chairman of HVR, takes immediate effect and is for a period of 16 years. Incidentally, the arrangement covers all major Games up to December 31, 2032.
Addressing the media persons soon after, the TTFI chief called it a momentous occasion in the annals of the federation and was proud to be a party to the two back-to-back agreements.
“Now that we have two big agreements—the latest one with a minimum guarantee of Rs. 2 crore per annum—our sport can really look up at par with some other disciplines. We can now have a larger pool of players to train and make moves towards achieving greater results. The agreement has come a shot in the arm for us to further the cause of table tennis in the country,” said Chaturvedi.
Reddy called it a “360 degree” agreement, meaning thereby that it covered all aspects of promotion and development of the sport. “Our agreement is meant to improve the lot of sportspersons, especially the table tennis players. Love and live off the sport is our motto. Towards that end, we’re starting from where it has to be started—at the grassroots. Sportspersons need not look for a job as his or her livelihood will be taken care of by the sport itself,” said Reddy.
In fact, Reddy said he was not merely looking at sponsoring events alone. “HVR’s idea is to create ideal conditions, including creating infrastructure, training players and coaches and lending support to technical officials. We want to slowly bring in players into the mainstream. We will start from block, panchyat, tehsil levels and finally districts so that more and more players are inducted. Our funding to states through TTFI is to take care of all these aspects,” he added.
There is an allocation of fund for nurturing young talent and train them abroad so that Cadet and Sub-Junior boys and girls become the beneficiary. “TTFI and we feel that these are the boys and girls who will go on to participate in 2028 or 2032 Olympics. So our concentration will be entirely on them, with all facilities provided to reach the height needed to win Olympic medals,” said Reddy.
Secretary-general Dhanraj Choudhary echoed his views saying that with Italian Massimo Costantini in place, TTFI will entrust him with the job identifying and training Junior and Youth Boys who can be targeted for 2024 Games, if not for the Tokyo Olympics, four years from now. “TTFI is also hiring two North Korean coaches along with two sparring partners who will be sent to states to take camps. We already have some requests from states and we are planning how well to use their services,” said Choudhary.
On the agreement with HVR, he said that it was the best thing to happen. “With funds coming from HVR, we can have special programmes for the players to help improve our standards,” he added.
