New Delhi [India]: The Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI) will be issuing a show-cause notice to paddler Manika Batra for refusing to take guidance from the national coach Soumyadeep Roy during the Tokyo Olympics, confirmed federation secretary Arun Banerjee on Wednesday.
“We have today in our meeting decided that the show cause notice will be issued, Manika Batra has 10 days to reply, accordingly will take action, mostly will issue the notice by tomorrow but the decision has been taken,” TTFI secretary Banerjee told. Earlier, Banerjee had made it clear that Manika Batra’s refusal to have national coach Soumyadeep Roy by her side during matches at the Tokyo Olympics will be taken up for discussion once the contingent returns to India.
Banerjee said the executive committee will decide on the course of action that needs to be taken since it was unprofessional for Manika to call Soumyadeep the personal coach of Sutirtha Mukherjee. “Personal coach is a wrong statement. Sutirtha plays in Soumyadeep’s academy, but he is the national coach. To say her coach was not allowed with her is wrong on Manika’s part. She knew before leaving from India what is the access of the coaches. All the players and coaches know the extent of access each has. Manika had applied for a personal coach, which we had recommended as well. When you know his access, to come to Tokyo and demand that her coach be there in place of Soumyadeep is wrong. To call him the personal coach of Sutirtha is wrong as he had taken national camp even before coming to Tokyo. The criteria is fixed and I asked Soumyadeep to speak to manager MP Singh and report it as he is there. I strongly oppose this,” he told.
Asked if this was unwanted from Manika, he said: “What is on her mind I can’t say. Surprised she brought this up here after knowing the criteria. I will discuss this with the executive committee and decide what action needs to be taken. We have to bring this up when we are back.”
Manika had earlier requested to allow the field of play (FOP) access for her personal coach Sanmay Paranjape. The paddler bowed out of the Tokyo Olympics after losing her Round 3 match.
