Gavaskar announced last night the setting up of a foundation called Champs whose aim is to help those sportspersons who have brought fame to the country but now fallen on hard times.

Champs, which is an acronym for Caring, Helping, Assisting, Motivating and Promoting Sportspersons, is provide support irrespective of the games they represented, Gavaskar told a press conference here.

``There are plenty of foundations for other fields like education, health, art, culture and for the disadvantaged but none to my knowledge specifically for Sports,'' Gavaskar said while detailing how the idea germinated in his mind.

Champs will render financial assistance to eligible persons, help them in finding sponsors besides motivating budding talent by providing equipment and facilities, the former India skipper said.

Besides Gavaskar, the other trustees of the foundationare the chairman of Mid-day publications Khalid Ansari and former Sheriff of Mumbai Nana Chudasama.

The foundation, to be set up with a corpus of Rs 70 lakh, also expects to rope in the corporate world for raising funds, Gavaskar, who provided a personal donation of Rs five lakh, said.

The first fund-raising activity will be a cricket match in which members of the 1983 World Cup winning team alongwith luminaries from the business and showbiz world will play at the Brabourne Stadium here on January 23, 1999.