BCCI CEO to meet with Sports Ministry official to discuss NADA policy
The BCCI CEO Rahul Johri will meet sports ministry officials on Friday. Although the board will seek clearance for South Africa A and women's teams' tours of India, the widely held speculation is that the go-ahead has been held back to pressurise them into accepting anti-doping norms.
The government and the BCCI have been at odds for quite sometime now for the board's refusal to come under the purview of NADA. On March 18, the BCCI decided to work independently with the NADA for six months on a trial basis. However, the BCCI’s referendum was rejected completely by the sports ministry.
"One thing should be very clear that we can't create any exception for the BCCI. For us all NSFs (National Sports Federations) are the same. All NSFs are under one government anti-doping agency and that is NADA. The BCCI cannot sign a separate Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the NADA without being fully compliant," a sports ministry official told PTI.
It has come to a stage now where the government seems to be holding back clearances for two visiting teams – South Africa A and women's teams' tours. As per protocol, whenever a country tours India, the BCCI updates the sports ministry with the itinerary and gets a clearance letter in return that helps visiting players to have a smooth processing of visas.
Usually, this is a 30 to 45-day procedure. However, the BCCI claim that despite sending an application in March, the ministry are yet to respond. The board’s CEO Johri has sought an appointment with sports secretary Radhey Shyam Jhulaniya.
"The BCCI CEO will meet the sports secretary tomorrow. He has sought time from the sports secretary to sort out some pending issues. We were always clear that if the BCCI has any pending work with us they should get in touch with us. It is never the other way round. Obviously there are issues with regards to BCCI coming under NADA ambit. But there are a lot of pending paperwork with regards to South Africa A and women's team that will be touring India at the end of this month,” the official said.
According to a BCCI official, the meeting is purely with regard to getting clearance for logistics regarding the series’ scheduled for the months of August and September. Perhaps this is a hint that the board is not willing to succumb to the government’s demands.
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