Visa problems keeping nine Indians from Riccione
So the knock on a USA-hosted world masters meet is that folks from some countries would encounter visa problems, right? Well, look out. Italy has its own demons. This story tells how nine Indian masters athletes may miss worlds because of visa issues. The story says: “Madhavan Nair, secretary of State Masters Association, said everything got derailed after the NMAA said that the participants require sponsors to visit Italy on tourist visa. In the last moment this is a difficult task and the participants should get visiting visa for the travel, he said.” Dang it, can’t anyone get on the horn and offer to be sponsors? At Gateshead 1999 worlds, I was told that Russian high jump great Valeri Brumel wanted to compete, but was barred over visa hassles.
Here’s the whole story:
Veteran athletes put on wrong track
Thursday September 6 2007 11:35 IST
MALAPPURAM: They lost the race even before it began. However, the nine veteran athletes, who have made all the preparations to take part in the World Master Athletic Championship, which is being held in Italy from September 4, are still hoping for a miracle that will take them to Italy.
They could not take the flight as they were not given visa. National Masters Athletic Association (NMAA) had selected 13 members from the state for the event and nine athletes have come forward to give a try. Though they have handed over all the relevant papers for the travel, they were not given visa on time.
Madhavan Nair, secretary of State Masters Association said everything got derailed after the NMAA said that the participants require sponsors to visit Italy on tourist visa. In the last moment this is a difficult task and the participants should get visiting visa for the travel, he said.
The change in the scheme was unveiled to the participants only a few days ahead of the competition.
The participants from West Bengal, Maharashtra and Goa have already reached Italy on visiting visa. But no steps have been taken to arrange the travel for participants from other states, he said.
Dr Sabu P Samuel, one of the athletes from Kerala, said they have paid Rs 96,500 to Kerala Travels for air tickets and accommodation in Italy. ‘‘The whole problem is due to the negligence of the travel agency and the NMAA. They have informed us about the problem just a few days ahead of the inauguration of competition,’’ he said.
He was to participate in decathlon and pole vault. Decathlon is already over on Tuesday. If the ticket gets confirmed in two days, I can at least take part in the pole vault, which is in next week, says Dr Sabu.
Madhavan Nair said the association has already held talks with Minister for State of External Affairs E Ahamed, Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi, state Sports Minister Vijayakumar and others to look into the issue.
One Response
This does not surprise me. The common European visa area, known as the Schengen area after the town in Denmark where the agreement was signed, is rapidly becoming just as difficult as the US for many people to get visas. Where I work we run an international education program for students from around the globe. Our program just began in Greece (part of the Schengen group) and will be arriving in Portugal (also a part of the group) in a week’s time. Students from some countries had extreme difficulties in getting visitor visas and some had to cancel their participation in the program because they were rejected. A medical doctor from Central America, who was to be our resident physician, also was turned down.
The Schengen countries are very wary of people from certain countries in Africa, Latin America, the Muslim world and (it appears from this story) India on two grounds — potential terrorism and potential illegal immigration (the Europeans face issues very much like our own in this regard).
We worked assiduously with embassies in Washington and with our collaborating universities, who in turn worked with embassies in their home countries. In one case it took a direct appeal from the Foreign Ministry of the students’ home country to the embassy involved to get the visas issued for students, and that not until AFTER the program had begun!
Bottom line, we are no longer the sole offenders when it comes to making it difficult to obtain a visa. It also appears that European consular officials can be just as officious as the worst US embassy visa officers.
Sad times we live in.
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