CHENNAI: The oft-prolonged wait for National Games looks set to go on with a Goa Olympic Association (GOA) official confirming what has been an open secret for a while — the state will not host the event before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

“It’s 100 per cent sure that the Games will not be held before the Tokyo 2020 Olympics,” said GOA secretary Gurudutta Bhakta. He also revealed that officials have sought a meeting with Indian Olympic Association (IOA) next week for crunch talks on the future of the Games.

With Goa adamant that they cannot host the Games in November — those dates had been proposed after their failure to hold the Games in March 2019 — and the IOA having a history of not hosting National Games in an Olympic year, the wait looks set to drag on. The last edition of the Games was held in Kerala in 2015.

The revelation comes even as Goa’s deputy chief minister and sports minister Manohar Ajgaonkar stated in the assembly on Wednesday that the government would not pay the ‘additional hosting fee’ of `6 crore. The amount had been imposed on the Goa government as a de facto fine for continuous delay in hosting the Games.

“We will not pay the fine imposed on us,” Ajgaonkar said, in a reply to a question raised by Congress MLA Aleixo Lourenco.

“The IOA has raised a demand for added hosting rights fee. However, the government has protested the demand raised by IOA and presently, the demand has not been acceded to. The 36th National Games were awarded to be hosted in Goa in 2011. However, all the previous Games editions got delayed — Ranchi (2011) and Thiruvananthapuram (2015) — before which Goa could not have held the Games.”

Ajgaonkar also revealed the amount of money the governm­ent had spent on the Games so far. “The state government has received `97.80 crore from the central government towa­rds infrastructure development for the National Games,” he said.

“The government has spent an amount of `390.47 crore on development of infrastructure for staging various disciplines of the National Games as on date.”

IOA president Narinder Batra responded by questioning if Goa was serious about hosting the Games.

“The minister is free to say what he wants in the assembly,” Batra said. “We are not even sure if they are serio­us about hosting the Games. The decision on the penalty was not mine, but it was taken by the executive council and the house.

"Whether they are paying or not is their choice but the fee is for real as it was decided by the house. But what is curious is that when they come to meet us, they tell us one thing. Then they go back and make a u-turn.”

He added that IOA secretary Rajeev Mehta and Games Technical Conduct Committee chairperson Mukesh Kumar have been mandated to coordinate with Goa officials and they will decide on matters that crop up in future.