After boycotting the Government meeting to discuss the Sports Policy draft, the Indian Olympic Association on Tuesday took a dig at the Sports Ministry for formulating a “great story” while the sportspersons were “lost in a maze” just a year before the Olympic Games.

The IOA, resenting being ignored by the Ministry while preparing the policy draft, had last week refused to sit across the table to discuss the document, before it is sent for the Cabinet’s final approval, and vented its resentment on the document at a press conference here.

“It’s only a great story. Everything is rosy, everything is perfect. It cannot be better than this,” said IOA General Secretary Randhir Singh.

“I have also heard from the Ministry that we are going to spend Rs 5000 crore for sports at the village level, but these are all stories and we should not get carried away by these because our annual budget for sports is only Rs 400 crore and not in thousands of crores,” he said.

Singh said in the quarrel between the IOA and the Government, sportspersons were the ultimate losers.

On the lines of the Panchayat Khel Abhiyan advocated by the Sports Policy draft, the IOA announced its plan to launch National Club Games to improve sports at grass roots level.

“We will have village level championships and the winners of which will reach the district level, inter-district level, state level, zonal level and then the national level,” he said.