Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Mansukh Mandaviya.
| Photo Credit: ANI
The Union Sports Minister, Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya, expressed confidence about slowly bringing the many sports federations, that are caught in legal tangle, back into healthy operation, in an informal chat with the media on Friday.
Endorsing the point that the Sports Federations had to be autonomous to stay in the global ambit, the minister said that it was also the responsibility of the government to ensure fair selection of athletes representing the country and merit had to be the sole criteria.
The Minister suggested that the merit driven selection process should ideally be “on camera” with competent observers across all sports federations.
“We want to implement open competition and open selection,” said Mandaviya.
When queried about the possible conflict of interest in the panel of experts under the Mission Olympic Cell (MOC), the Minister assured that the selection of athletes for TOPS support would be purely based on merit and the factor of the concerned athletes being in a position to compete in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The Sports Ministry has also expressed interest about hosting the 2030 Commonwealth Games. More than that, the government is ready to host the disciplines of Indian interest in the country, in the shrunk Commonwealth Games being hosted in Glasgow next year.
It was also understood that measures would be taken to ensure the participation of Indian wrestlers in the forthcoming Asian Championship, which would subsequently pave the way for Indian entries in the World Championship.
Published – February 21, 2025 06:41 pm IST
