Administrative incompetence results in appalling treatment of U-16 basketball players

The organisers were myopic in their planning of the tournament

After hockey, boxing and senior basketball, it was the turn of basketball players under the tender age of sixteen to experience firsthand, the managerial ineptitude of Indian sporting authorities. Callousness on the part of the organisers of the National Youth Basketball Championships led to over 200 budding basketball players from fourteen Indian states being subject to subhuman treatment.

Incessant rains and the lack of an indoor court made the organisers of the tournament, the K. Govindraj faction of the Basketball Federation of India, herd the players from pillar to post, with no place to rest between matches. The young hoopsters were forced to play into the wee hours of the night in what proved an exercise in futility, as the finals had to be cancelled due to rains.

The quandary surrounding the K.Govindraj faction has resulted in the Union Sports Ministry not granting permission to the BFI to conduct any official tournament in India, which meant that matches could not be held in the state-of-the-art indoor stadium in Bhavnagar University. This comes after an official announcement by the BFI that this tournament would inaugrate the new indoor stadium. A classic case of blowing your trumpet while counting chickens before they’ve hatched.

A two-hundred-kilometer journey awaited the boys and girls teams from Bhavnagar to Anand for the quarterfinals and semifinals, after heavy rains made play impossible in Bhavnagar. There was no respite from the heavens in the alternate venue either. After a six-hour delay, all the matches had to be accommodated on the sole indoor court at the Sardar Patel University in Anand. Then the players had to make the tiresome return to Bhavnagar.

The disaffection of the players reached breaking point when the finalists refused to make the up-and-down trip for the finals on Sunday. Unceasing rains that lasted the whole of Sunday resulted in the finalists being declared joint winners. The worst off were the girls teams from Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Punjab; the semifinal between Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra which was scheduled for 9 PM, began at 2 AM and the players returned to Bhavnagar at 5 AM.

The organizers ensured that the players were supplied with food and drink, but they had no place to rest. Govind Mutthukumar, Secretary of the Maharashtra State Basketball Association, was amongst those who expressed ire, “Whether it's boys or girls, how can players play at 2am after traveling for 4-5 hours? This is atrocious. It's not acceptable in any sport irrespective of the gender, age group or any classification. It's simply not done."

The secretary of the officially recognized K.Govindraj faction of the BFI, Chander Mukhi Sharma, stated, "We cannot control rains. Despite incessant rains we have not stopped the event and found an alternative arrangement and successfully conducted the matches." When questioned why the matches weren’t held in the indoor facility, Sharma added, "There is no indoor stadium in Bhavnagar, it's a badminton court."