The news about the International Olympic Committee suspending India has not been entirely unexpected though the pace with which events unfolded on Tuesday might have stunned many. That both sides adopted uncompromising postures while handling a most sensitive matter was unfortunate. The IOC did not wait for the Indian Olympics Association (IOA) elections to take place on Wednesday before suspending India, nor did it give a hearing to the Indian body, especially at a time when its representative in the country, Randhir Singh, happened to be an aspiring candidate in the elections. On its part, the IOA did not show the urgency or diplomacy that was warranted to deal with the situation. The IOA allowed things to drift even though contentious issues related to government guidelines on tenure of office-bearers — first enforced in 1975 — had been brewing for more than two years. It was the former Sports Minister, M. S. Gill, who pulled out the old guidelines from ‘cold storage’ in 2010, amended them and firmly told the IOA and the National Sports Federations (NSFs) to fall in line. Once the IOC warned the IOA that it should not go ahead with its elections under the National Sports Code as directed by the Delhi High Court, the suspension was a foregone conclusion.

If the IOC was on the IOA’s side in 2010 and subsequently, when the National Sports Development Bill was mooted in February 2011, the situation has changed completely with the IOC taking a rare stand against a National Olympic Committee because of what it perceives is the latter’s defiance. Factional fights within the Indian Olympic body have only helped divert the real issues that have plagued Indian sports administration for long, and delayed the reforms that are badly needed. Even as it has objected to government regulations dictating the IOA’s elections, the IOC has all but made it plain that it would not be averse to the idea of tenure restrictions if the measure is voluntarily adopted rather than imposed by the government. The IOA’s inability to sort things out with the government has led to this unprecedented suspension in its 88-year-old history. The Commonwealth Games scam that led to officials including IOA President Suresh Kalmadi and current Secretary-General-designate, Lalit Bhanot, being charge-sheeted, has only strengthened the public perception that sports bodies need to be brought under government regulation, especially when government funds are being utilised for the development of sports. The courts have concurred with the government view. The IOC’s sanction is not an intractable position but both the government and the IOA will need to come on board to clean up the mess without harming the interests of the athletes.

-The Hindu

IOA suspension: India’s sports bosses fail Olympic athletes yet again

Once again the administrators of Indian sport have shown they are unable to see past their own noses. The suspension of the Indian Olympic Association by the International Olympic Committee over government interference in its elections is not only a resounding slap on the face for the country, but a result of an attitude that places administrators above athletes.

For months the IOA has been acting as if the IOC’s threat to suspend it for holding elections under India’s National Sports Code was nothing but empty words. No attempts were made by the acting president, VK Malhotra, to meet with either the IOC or the government to come up with a solution to the impasse.

It was only when the IOC announced last week that it would propose suspension at its meeting today that the IOA swung into action and decided to send two of its members to Switzerland to present its side of things. At the same time, the organization saw fit to elect Lalit Bhanot, who is being tried on graft charges relating to the Commonwealth Games, as its secretary general.

Unsurprisingly, the IOC refused to grant the IOA an audience and went ahead with the suspension.

To be fair, there is plenty of blame to go around. The government’s insistence that the elections be held under the Sports Code, while an admirable attempt to bring order and transparency to the functioning of India’s sports associations, was the cause of the friction with the IOC. The Delhi High Court order ruling that the elections be held under the Sports Code made it impossible for the IOA to act otherwise without violating the law of the land.

But the government’s role serves only to obscure the real problem: that India’s sporting administrators, who also tend to be politicians, still see sports as their private fiefdoms, free of accountability. Suresh Kalmadi was the president of the IOA for 16 years before he was forced to step down because of the scandal over the Commonwealth Games. Malhotra, who is 80 years old, has been head of the Archery Association of India for three decades. They are used to functioning in whatever way they please without anyone questioning them.

The logical approach to the situation would have been to suspend the elections until the issue was resolved. But neither Malhotra nor Abhay Singh Chautala, the newly elected president, were willing to take that step. Instead, they banked on the IOC blinking first and went ahead with their plans regardless. That assumption has now come back to bite them.

There could still be a silver lining to this mess, however. While the suspension means India’s athletes cannot compete in Olympic events under the Indian flag (the IOC could allow them to do so under the Olympic flag), things are unlikely to reach that point. The move is aimed primarily at goading the IOA to put its house in order, which presents an opportunity for change. The government should cut out the middleman – in this case the IOA – and sit down with the IOC to explain why the Sports Code is necessary and resolve any differences between the requirements of the IOC charter and the government’s regulations. Most countries around the word have sports laws, so there is no reason a compromise cannot be reached. If that were to happen, the satraps running the IOA would have run out of excuses and have to fall in line (that officials will be banned from attending Olympic meetings and events might also have an effect).

The 2012 London Olympics saw India produce its best results ever at the Olympics and the country can ill afford to squander the momentum that has been built starting with the 2008 Beijing Olympics. If our administrators will not adapt, they should be told they will no longer be allowed to stand alongside India’s new sporting ambitions.

-First Post