'Female coaches must travel with women athletes': SAI issues guidelines

Chennai: The Sports Authority of India (SAI) on Wednesday issued some guidelines and advised the National Sports Federations (NSF) to adopt them immediately. These new guidelines came up after recent complaints lodged by women athletes against their coaches.

According to the guidelines, it was mandated that a contingent with female athletes during domestic/international travel must have an accompanying woman coach, the New Indian Express reported.

"The roles and responsibilities of the Compliance Officer include communicating regularly with athletes and others to ensure that the guidelines are being followed as well as enforce the Standard Operating Procedure on prevention of sexual harassment in sports. The Compliance Officer, among other duties, should ensure that if any member reports a violation, the same should be reported earliest to the responsible authorities," SAI said in a statement on Wednesday.

Chief coach RK Sharma had previously been accused of "inappropriate behaviour" by a female cyclist during a training-cum-competition tour in Slovenia, who also filed an FIR against him. The coach was immediately terminated and is facing an investigation to his deed.