'Uninvited' foreign coach Temo not our responsibility: WFI

NEW DELHI: Back in India to resume national duties after spending four months of covid-19 lockdown in Georgia, chief foreign Greco-Roman coach, Temo Kasarashvili, hoped for a warm welcome from the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI).
But, to his rude shock, the Georgian has been forced to make his own arrangement at a low-budget hotel in Sonepat, where he's quarantining as well, with no one from the WFI and his employer, Sports Authority of India (SAI), to take care of him during the pandemic time.
Temo arrived in Delhi from Tbilisi Thursday last week - along with Bajrang Punia's personal coach Shako Bentinidis - on a special flight arranged by the Georgian government. However, the WFI has made the veteran coach feel "unwanted" on Indian shores. According to WFI's assistant secretary Vinod Tomar, Temo has come to India "uninvited" without informing the authorities and, as such, the federation won't be taking his "responsibility". Similarly, Tomar informed, the SAI, too, has refused to arrange for his stay at its Bahalgarh regional centre in Sonepat as no national camp is currently underway in wrestling.
"Temo talked to me on July 30 and showed me the flight ticket that he's returning to resume his duties. I told him that I'll get back to him after talking to the SAI officials. However, next morning (on July 31), I received a call from Greco-Roman national coach Hargobind Singh that Temo has arrived in the country. When he's coming uninvited, then he has to take care of himself. The federation is not in touch with him. There's no national camp happening, he should have stayed in Georgia," Tomar told TOI.
According to sources, Hargobind has made arrangements for Temo's stay at the Sonepat hotel. But the hotel lacks proper food hygiene and sanitation practices. Also, Temo is around 70 and the WFI has ignored the fact that if the coach got infected with the virus, who'll be held responsible? It's been learnt that Hargobind has planned to shift him to some local akhada nearby till the camp starts.
Temo had his own fears coming to India, ranging from another round of salary cut to job loss. Temo, who gets $4000 per month, hadn't been receiving his full salary during the lockdown period. He was paid for the numbers of online coaching classes he attended during a month, organised by the SAI. In a month, every week, Temo attended four online classes, which worked out to a total of 16-18 sessions in a month and he was paid accordingly.
Recently, women's team's foreign coach, Andrew Cook, was fired by the WFI on whimsical grounds, after the American demanded his full, legitimate salary during the lockdown period. WFI had reasoned that Cook refused to participate in the online classes conducted by the SAI and was only interested in his salary and not working passionately towards the Indian wrestling. On the other hand, Cook had alleged that the WFI terminated his contract for his refusal to discuss American selection methods which had no linkage to the Indian system.
Similarly, Bajrang's coach Shako has already been working on half salary. When he had flown down to Tbilisi, along with Temo, before the lockdown in India, the Georgian was told to attend the online classes, which he did during his stay in his home country. However, the WFI later cut 30 percent of his salary and then threatened to slash it further to 50 percent. Shako drew a monthly salary of approx $6000 (Rs 4.5 lakh) as part of his contract prior to the lockdown.
Fearing pay cut and job loss, Shako chose to return to India along with Temo on a special flight on July 30 and, since then, has been quarantining at a covid facility in Delhi. After completing his mandatory quarantine period, he will fly down to Bengaluru to join his wards Bajrang and Jitendra Kumar at the Inspire Institute of Sports (IIS) in Vijayanagar. Shako knew the fact that his delay in arrival would result in his job loss. So, despite the number of Covid-19 cases rising in India, he chose to return.
Last year, the WFI had, rather amusingly, fired the men's team's Iranian coach, Hossein Karimi, halfway through his contract, contending that the coach's tantrums were difficult to manage.
Temo, who has been a witness to all these dramatic exits of foreign coaches, feared for his own job loss, given the WFI's dodgy track record and decided to join the national duties. It's also a fact that the WFI had been talking about resuming the national camp, first from mid-July and later early August, which made Temo take a trip down to India. Now, the camp has been postponed further for late August or early September.
According to WFI, since the coach is on SAI's payroll, the sports authority needed to be informed in advance about his arrival in India so that the necessary arrangements could have been worked out. Since Temo decided to return on his own, the SAI also didn't get time to make arrangements as its Sonepat centre remains closed due to the pandemic. Effectively, none from the WFI or SAI wish to take Temo's responsibility till the time the wrestling camp gets underway in Sonepat.