THE 70 athletes who stand to benefit for funding under a joint initiative of Government and the Jamaica Administrative Athletics Association (JAAA) will have to meet a strict set of criteria.

Dr Blake, the JAAA boss, told the Jamaica Observer Press Club on Friday that the criteria are being developed and finetuned before it can be presented to the executive committee for ratification, and further to be implemented. “The money won’t be a blank cheque, it will come with obligations.

They (athletes) will have to sign contracts with us which goes without saying; if you are going to be getting money from us and it will come with responsibilities,” Dr Blake pointed out.

Following consultations with the JAAA and an inter-ministerial committee established by the Prime Minister and included the Opposition bench, it was agreed that the usual elaborate homecoming celebration for the World Championships heroes be cancelled and that $40 million be put towards an athletes development and welfare fund instead.

With the money saved, the pool now stands at $60 million, which will help provide a monthly stipend to 70 athletes currently in the national programme and those going through the developmental process heading into Rio Olympics in Brazil next year.

A number of athletes are anxiously awaiting the criteria that will make them eligible for such funding, and Dr Blake outlined what is in the pipeline. Among the requirements, he revealed, is that athletes and coaches must be registered with the federation and must be at a particular standard.

“Oftentime you hear them talk about what other countries are doing for the athletes, but they don’t point out that in Britain, the minute you fall below the standard you are off the programme. So we will be putting a standard in place,” said Dr Blake. Also, there will be a classification for promising junior athletes who have finished the high school programme.

“We are seeing how we can involve them in the programme in terms of who will be taken to the next Olympics,” he noted. Dr Blake told reporters and editors that performances that are submitted as qualifying performances will have to be ratified because of questionable ones in the past.

Also, it was pointed out that athletes earning above a certain amount will not qualify for the benefits. “If they are earning at that level they should be able to take care of their own means, and in that case we would look at earnings on the circuit and professional contracts,” said Dr Blake.

Athletes will also be required to sign and adhere to a code of conduct and will also have to make themselves available for JAAA’s events. If an athlete has not represented the country in a particular time period, he or she will be removed from the programme, the Observer was told.

“These are some of the things we are looking at. Then there is the whole question of training camps and all that. We haven’t fully signed off on the criteria,” he added.

“We have been looking at how other countries do it — what is done Britain, what the United States and other Caribbean countries — do and we are trying to seek the best of all the different worlds and see if we can apply it to the Jamaican situation,” said Dr Blake.