Former Sports Minister criticises IOC on IOA elections

Nov 25, 2012 |

New Delhi

Tags:

Former Sports Minister M S Gill today lambasted the International Olympic Committee for threatening to suspend India and said the country should not be "frightened of paper tigers" who are rejecting electoral reforms in the IOA despite following them in their own case.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) elections that are scheduled next month are embroiled in controversy and the IOC is threatening to suspend India if government guidelines on age and tenure limitation are implemented.

The IOC says the IOA elected should be conducted minus any government interference.
Gill, however, rejected the IOC's stand, saying it smacks of "sports imperialism".

"There has been a continuing malady in Indian sports management, which everyone is conscious of. Heavy political presence, unlimited continuous tenure from 20 years to 40 years, invariably without any sports background," he said in a statement.

Gill recalled how efforts by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to bring in reforms in the sports governance were scuttled.

"The IOA people led by their then Chairman, all pressed the fear of the IOC action in their defense, and suggested to the PM not to do anything.

"Rajiv Gandhi rejected their threat and said let the IOC ban us. We will use money spent on all of you for coaching of young sports persons. I have this knowledge from the then Union Sports Minister, who especially telephoned me to tell me and urge me to carry out the reforms. I dug out the minutes of 1987 meeting," he claimed.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/205168" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-dca4db76fae073f02ebabf00abf0fd52" value="form-dca4db76fae073f02ebabf00abf0fd52" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85687379" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>