World Athletics: $500,000 fund to "support professional athletes experiencing financial hardship"

"World Athletics, together with the International Athletics Foundation (IAF), has today launched a US$500,000 fund to support professional athletes experiencing financial hardship due to the coronavirus pandemic," announced the international federation on 28/04/2020.

"Sebastian Coe, chairman of World Athletics, will chair an expert multi-regional working group to assess the applications for assistance, which will be submitted through World Athletics’ six Area Associations. The working group will meet this week to establish a process for awarding and distributing grants to individual athletes and to look at other ways to raise additional monies for the fund," added the body.

"I am in constant contact with athletes around the world and I know that many are experiencing financial hardship as a consequence of the shutdown of most international sports competition in the last two months. Our professional athletes rely on prize money as part of their income and we’re mindful that our competition season, on both the track and road, is being severely impacted by the pandemic. We are…