Feuding sports officials threaten the progress of Indian basketball

When IOC president Thomas Bach visited India a couple of months ago, he planned to ask India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, why India struggled to produce world class athletes. He need not have bothered. One look at the dysfunction among India’s sporting bodies and he’d have had his answer. The Indian Olympic Association is a house divided. The boxing federation barely exists and the ParaOlympic Association of India no longer exists. Whenever a sport starts to gain momentum, you can be sure India’s sports officials will find a way to set it back. [caption id=“attachment_2288892” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The men’s basketball team celebrates after beating China. Twitter[/caption] The Basketball Federation of India is the latest to fall victim to the curse of the power-hungry sports official. While news of Sim Bhullar and Satnam Singh have hogged the headlines lately, behind the scenes a battle for control has split the federation in two, forcing the involvement of the Delhi High Court and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the sport’s governing body, which sent a letter to both sides on 23 May, 2015, warning them to settle the matter amicably or risk sanction. As detailed in the Hindu Business Line supplement, Blink, the brouhaha is between the K Govindaraj faction and the Roopam Sharma faction. Both sides held Annual General Meetings a day apart, with Govindaraj being elected president on 27 March in Bengaluru and Roopam elected elected secretary and BJP MLA, Poonam Mahajan, president (Mahajan is the president of the Maharashtra Basketball Association) on March 28 in Pune. Roopam took over as CEO of the federation in 2012 after her husband, former president and CEO, Harish Sharma, died suddenly. However, at the AGM on 27 March, the position of CEO was abolished. Naturally, the dispute went to court and while the Delhi High Court has held that the AGM on March 27 was legitimate, it hasn’t ruled definitely for or against either side. Since Mahajan is a BJP politician, there has reportedly been an attempt to get the Sports Minister to intervene and declare Mahajan and Roopam the rightful heads of the association. According to Blink, the dispute has forced IMG-Reliance, the commercial partners of BFI, to withhold funding, leading to the loss of Francisco Garcia, the national women’s head coach, and Tommy Heffelfinger, the strength and conditioning coach. Men’s head coach Scott Flemming, who led the team to an inspiring win over China last year, has also left. Both sides also appealed to FIBA, which led FIBA to issue its letter (a copy of which is with Firstpost) to both sides, as well as the Sports Ministry, in which it stated in strong terms that Govindaraj and his team had the only legitimate claim to run the BFI. “The result of the elections held in Bengaluru on 27 March 2015 is recognised by FIBA”, the letter said, adding later that “FIBA confirms that no concrete evidence was put forward which would question the validity altogether of the General Council held in Bengaluru.” FIBA urged both sides to accept its decision and settle the matter “within the basketball family in India”, failing which it reserved the right to “shed light on the allegations made and to initiate further proceedings”. Perhaps the most worrying part of the entire episode is FIBA’s warning of potential criminality. “The files submitted to FIBA contain extremely serious allegations which may be subject to criminal proceedings in India as well as to proceedings under the FIBA Code of Ethics.” Sadly, that is a description all too familiar to followers of Indian sport.