Tenure guidelines cast shadow of derecognition over Indian judo federation

Political power struggles prove detrimental to Indian judokas

The Indian sports scene has witnessed so many eye-catching examples of top federation officials holding on to their posts for many years, at times even for decades. A classic case is Archery Association of India President VK Malhotra – a seasoned sports administrator – who had served as the federation president for four decades until stepping down recently.

There are many others, who have always shown the propensity to have a ‘long innings’ in the federation in some capacity.

The Judo Federation of India (JFI) is now the latest sports federation to raise the hackles of the sports ministry. The sports ministry wants the current JFI president Mukesh Kumar to step down as his election as the federation president in 2013 contravenes the tenure guidelines of the sports code put in place by the ministry.

As the sports code clearly states that no official can continue in any post after serving two consecutive terms of four years each. Mukesh Kumar, a former SAI official, has twice served as secretary of JFI until he got elected as president of the federation in 2013, taking over from Jagdish Tytler, who also had a long stint as JFI president.

The sports ministry has no issues with whom the JFI elects as president but all it wants Mukesh Kumar to do is to avail a ‘cooling off period’ as the sports code stipulates after serving two terms as JFI secretary. The ministry has asked Kumar to step down and the latter has been meeting the officials from the ministry in a bid to wriggle out of the situation.

No sports federation would like to get derecognized because it means that the government would halt financial aid to the federation. The current president of the Judo Federation of India has sounded defiant over the ministry’s call to step down and it remains to be seen when the patience of the ministry runs thin and results in a derecognisation of the JFI.

“JFI is under pressure like the AAI to be derecognised by the sports ministry. No federation would like to get derecognised and one hopes better sense prevails and Mukesh Kumar steps aside,” said a former judo player.

Clearly, the coming days will determine the fate of the JFI president. Hopefully, Indian judokas won’t be affected by this.