If anyone wants to know why there is so much resentment towards officials and the sports federations, Indian Olympic Association’s (IOA) latest tweet explaining details about the leaked email from badminton star Saina Nehwal over the accreditation of her father Harvir ahead of the Commonwealth Games.
(Read more: Follow all the events of day one on our live blog)
Nehwal was upset that her father was not allowed entry in the Games Village the day they arrived in Gold Coast on Monday and had written to IOA secretary general Rajiv Mehta allegedly threatening to withdraw from the Games if her father was not granted the required accreditation.
The IOA officials were quick to resolve the issue the very next day and officials of the Indian contingent happily posed for pictures with the star shuttler and her father thereafter. But public opinion turned against the London Olympics bronze medallist in a few hours after her said email reached the media and was eventually circulated on various social media platforms.
But it looked like both Nehwal and the IOA seemed to have buried the hatchet for the time being with officials insisting that they were unhappy with the tone of the letter but did not want to affect the player’s morale during the competition.
However, it is difficult to understand what changed on Friday morning with the IOA’s twitter handle hinting that the 28-year-old was probably responsible for the leak as she had marked the copy of the tweet to many people.
Even if that is true and the IOA general secretary or his office was in no way responsible for leaking the mail, it is difficult to understand why the Narinder Batra-led organisation wanted to rake up the issue on the day the Games well and truly got underway.
The timing of the tweet was also such that Indian badminton team had just registered a clinical win over Sri Lanka and sports fans would have been following Mirabai Chanu’s performance to become the first Indian gold medallist of the 2018 Games.
There is no denying the fact that Nehwal should not have sent such a mail to any official as parents of players should not get priority over the other support staff and the IOA was within rights to reprimand her or take action at any stage. Infact, it should use the incident to create a clear guidelines on who can be part of the Indian contingent.
But having conceded to the player’s demand stating that it was important to overlook the issue for now in the interest of the country, the IOA could have easily waited till the Games to get over before raking up the issue again.
While Nehwal has refused to react since the controversy first broke out, it is likely that the IOA officials would have faced some flak from the athletes and even internally over the leaked email and were just trying to do a damage control.
But the way they went about that business would only reinforce the public belief that most of these officials are always pre-occupied with serving their own interests and have little regard for the sportsperson or the sports they serve.
Limited-time offer: Big stories, small price. Keep independent media alive. Become a Scroll member today!
Our journalism is for everyone. But you can get special privileges by buying an annual Scroll Membership. Sign up today!