New Delhi: The Indian Olympic Association’s executive council on Thursday stuck to their stand and did not ratify the appointment of CEO Raghuram Iyer, leading to a standoff with president PT Usha at the IOA headquarters here on Thursday.
Usha said the move would impact India’s “dialogue with IOC’s Future Host Commission” with regards to hosting of the 2036 Olympics.
“Without a CEO, they (IOC) will not allow any dialogue with the Future Host Commission (FHC) on 2036 Olympics because he has to lead the talks. We cannot go just like that. We have to show professionalism. Only when we appointed the CEO in January did they call us for a meeting and we had dialogue with FHC twice. They are asking me again when we can have a dialogue but I cannot do anything now,” said Usha.
In the crucial EC meeting that was attended by Jerome Poivey, Director IOC, as special invitee, 12 members of the EC while expressing their views that CEO is a must and should be appointed put forth their concerns on the nomination of Iyer as the CEO and the agenda was put to vote with 12 members against the ratification of the CEO, as per the minutes of the meeting signed by the other EC members, except president Usha, who chaired the meeting.
Iyer was appointed CEO in January and EC members have raised objections to a pay package of ₹20 lakh per month. The EC members also noted that the process of appointment of CEO should be reinitiated with new terms of reference and expects it to be concluded in the two months.
Usha left the meeting after this. The members then decided that Joint Secretary Kalyan Chaubey shall continue to discharge the duties of acting CEO till a CEO is appointed as per the provisions of the constitution.
As per the minutes by EC she left “abruptly while not returning to the meeting for a long while.” Usha, who chaired the meeting, said she was not part of this discussion. “I was in the meeting for an hour or so and once the agenda was covered, I left. They cannot decide and include it in minutes of the meeting.”
On being asked what will be her next step, Usha said, “I will see what is the best step forward now as per the constitution and decide accordingly. First, they had a problem with the salary of the CEO, now they want to restart the process of appointment? You can’t change your words every time. It took so long to appoint the CEO.”
“I asked each and everyone in EC on Raghu Iyer and they said only salary has to be negotiated. Then I asked what is the lower rate and what is the higher rate, which they did not mention. It is the only EC meeting (in January) video recorded. Otherwise, they (members) don’t allow me to even video record meetings,” said Usha.
“Jerome (IOC representative in the meeting) told them that they should go on to ratify this,” she said.
As per the minutes of the meeting, “The IOC representative expressed his views as well, while stating that this was an internal matter of the IOA and there was no specific views of interference of the IOC on the matter.”
“We never gave a go ahead on the appointment of CEO. We never saw who all had applied for the position. What is the interest of the CEO that he wants to continue in IOA even though the board has not ratified it,” asked an EC member.
“It will not take more than two months to appoint a new CEO. We are all for the betterment of Indian sport and want that things to be streamlined quickly,” the member added.
India wants to bid for the 2030 Youth Olympics and 2036 Summer Olympics but the turmoil within the IOA is delaying dialogue with FHC.
As a first step towards bidding for the Olympics, the FHC has engaged in discussion with nations who show interest in hosting the Olympics before it goes through several rounds to firm up the bid and candidates to be finally recommended to its IOC Executive Board. IOC has maintained that “a strong NOC is needed for a positive bidding process.”
