Winter Games Federation of India derecognized by the Indian Olympic Association

What's the story?

Winter Games Federation of India has been derecognized by the IOA owing to the improper conduction of federation elections and have set up a five-member ad-hoc committee to handle the operations of the federation.

Indian winter sports legend Shiva Keshavan made the announcement about the WGFI via his Twitter account.

The Winter Games federation has been deaffiliated and a 5 member ad hoc committee has been appointed by the Indian Olympic Association to oversee the restructuring. #change #cleansports #Olympics #WinterGames #LugeLove #India

— Shiva Keshavan, OLY (@100thofasec) March 11, 2018

In case you didn't know...

Winter Games Federation of India (WGFI) is the governing body that handles the various winter sports like Skiing, Snow Cycling, Luge etc in the country.

The heart of the matter

The Winter Games Federation of India has been derecognized by the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) for not following governmental regulations regarding the conduct of the federation elections.

The IOA has set up a five-member ad-hoc committee that will oversee the operations of the federation and will hold a meeting to discuss and decide the future of the winter sports governing body.

WGFI general secretary Roshan Lal Thakur spoke to Sportskeeda about the matter.

"The five-member ad-hoc committee will decide in their meeting how the federation will run in the future. There are possibilities that the meeting will be held in the coming week," said Thakur. "The IOA felt that the federation is not being run properly and thus, they created this ad-hoc committee and it will exist till the new elections are not conducted."

Thakur's term as the general secretary is set to come to an end this year in August. He spoke about the Government of India's regulation for the conduct of the fresh elections.

"Two years ago, the Government of India had asked us to conduct fresh elections as the elections conducted by us were not according to the sports guidelines. The elections did not take place and thus, the IOA has sanctioned us," said Thakur.

Thakur further elaborated on the federation's current working and the situation of the winter sports athletes as a result of this derecognition.

"The winter sports athletes will not encounter any problems at all. Even though the IOA has derecognized us and rendered our executive board ineffective, their ad-hoc committee will take over the work of the board. The committee will decide on the betterment of the federation's functioning at the meeting," he said.

What's next?

The five-member ad-hoc committee set up by the Indian Olympic Association will conduct its meeting soon in New Delhi and decide the immediate future of the WGFI.

Author's take

The WGFI administration is at fault for not adhering to the election rules and the committee meeting will quickly sort out the issues and the federation will be reinstated with proper elections.