The 87-year-old Chinese official revealed that athletes and officials must pay $50 (£41/€47) per day during the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

insidethegames understands that the payment, which has been a condition at previous Asian Games, covers accommodation, meals and transport during their stay.

"For the Asian Games, all the athletes and officials should pay to participate in the Games," said Wei.

"Here, in order to participate in the Asian Games, everyone - athletes and officials - have to pay $50 per day.

"Now the Hangzhou Asian Games scale is bigger.

"We have more and more participating athletes and they pay for the Games.

"What does [this] mean?

"This mean that the Asian Governments support the sport.

"The Governments like to pay for their athlete for participation and the people are happy to see their athlete in the Asian Games."

Hangzhou 2022 will be the largest Asian Games in history with a record 12,500 athletes from 45 nations competing in 40 sports over 15 days of competition.

The Games are bigger than the Olympics, with over 1,000 more athletes and an extra seven sports compared to the number on the programme at Tokyo 2020.

Wei believes that the OCA has proven the International Olympic Committee (IOC) wrong over the number of sports after revealing that during the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing the organisation’s then President Juan Antonio Samaranch had voiced his disapproval.

"We have more sports involved in our Games," said Wei.

"Why?

"I remember during the Beijing Asian Games, the IOC President Mr [Juan Antonio] Samaranch criticised me.

"'Why do you put too much sport in?'

"I replied to Samaranch ‘because we want all the Asian athletes to have a chance to get together, not only compete for competition'.

"The results are important, but the results are not all for Asia.

"I have been working [in] Asian sports development for more than 20 years.

"We try many times to have the country and regions provide sports equipment and coaches but the achievement was limited.

"Finally, I find a way to have more sports in especially regional sports to allow more athletes from various countries and regions to get medals."

Wei revealed that statistics from Jakarta Palembang 2018 showed that more than 80 per cent of Asian National Olympic Committees got at least one medal.

"When athletes from developing countries get a medal, his people are very happy and his Government is happy," added Wei.

"Then the Government support the sport and sports position in society is high.

"I think it is this policy from the OCA [that] is successful."