Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) chair­man Pe­ter Kan­hai says there were no dis­cus­sions with or­gan­is­ers of the Ul­ti­mate So­ca Cham­pi­on (USC) be­fore the 2026 edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion was shelved due to a lack of fund­ing.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Kan­hai con­firmed that the event’s or­gan­is­ers for­mal­ly wrote to the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and copied the NCC on the cor­re­spon­dence.

As a re­sult, he said, any de­ci­sion on fund­ing would have had to orig­i­nate from the Min­istry of Cul­ture.