A SUSPENSION from international football, the appointment of a Committee of Administrators (COA) to run the Indian Olympic Association (ION), and uncertainty over hosting the hockey World Cup. Even as the dust settles over a successful Commonwealth Games campaign, Indian sport has been thrown into turmoil.
Late Monday night, football’s world governing body FIFA announced that it had suspended All India Football Federation (AIF) “with immediate effect due to flagrant violations of the FIFA Statutes”. FIFA cited “undue interference by a third party”, referring to a Supreme Court-appointed COA to run the daily affairs of the AIF, as the reason for suspending India.
The IOC, too, is staring at a similar fate after the Delhi High Court on Tuesday named another COA to run the federation. Last month, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had threatened to suspend the IOC for outside interference in its functioning, as well as not conducting its elections in a timely manner.
The IOC is the fifth sports federation, after football, hockey, judo and table tennis, to be placed under a COA. Former Supreme Court judge, Justice Anil Dave, and ex-chief election commissioner S Y Quraish are administrators in three of the five Coast: football, hockey and IOC.
The latest setbacks for AIF and IOC came at a time when a high-level delegation of the International Hockey Federation (FIP) is in New Delhi for crisis talks with the Government, Hockey India and a third court-appointed COA.
The FIT has said if their meetings, likely to take place on Wednesday, are not satisfactory, they will consider stripping India of hosting rights for the World Cup, scheduled to be held in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela in January 2023.
All these Indian sporting bodies find themselves in the dock due to governance-related issues.
In a letter to Sand DAR, the acting secretary general of AFF, FIFA secretary general Fatima Seymour said they will lift the suspension only after the “repeal of the COA mandate in full” and once the AFF administration is “fully in charge” of its daily affairs.
According to the High Court order, the main task of the COA is to bring IOC and its Constitution in compliance with the Sports Code and facilitate the holding of elections to hand over the affairs to a democratically elected body preferably within a period of 16 weeks.
The bench also recorded that in all its 95 years of existence, the IOC has never had a woman as its president or secretary general. “Surely, women do aspire to be in significant positions in the decision-making process. Their presence… will lend to fruition of their valid aspirations. Accordingly, women shall comprise half of the category of sports persons with voting rights in the General Body as well as in the EC,” said Justice Wapiti in the ruling.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Manmohan expressed surprise that the IOC Constitution stipulates that its president can be for life. “…one is reminded of the mausoleum of the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, where terracotta soldiers were buried with the purpose of protecting the Emperor in his afterlife,” he said.
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