23 January,2010 07:21 AM IST | | Agencies
With Indian sports grappling with one embarrassing controversy after another, the IOA needs to put up a united front, vice-president Vijay Kumar Malhotra said.
He wrote a letter to Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi, saying "uniform and joint decisions concerning all the sports disciplines and sportspersons is the need of the hour", according to PTI.
The IOA is struggling to handle a number of controversies ranging from the payment crisis in both the men's and women's hockey team to Olympic gold medallist shooter Abhinav Bindra's demand for exemption from trials. "Many issues are arising everyday on which joint decisions would be desirable," the letter said.
Besides the hockey controversy, shooter Abhinav Bindra recently created a furore by stating that he is so upset with the national association's insistence on his appearance in trials that he feels like quitting shooting. More recently, Indian weightlifters Shailaja Pujari and Vicky Batta were slapped with life bans by International Weightlifting Federation. for multiple doping offences.
