Asian Junior Wrestling Championships: Cloud over meet as Home Ministry yet to give clearance

The Asian Junior Wrestling Championships are set to take place in Delhi from July 17-23. Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) must get a three-level clearance in order to play host to the foreign wrestlers. Ministry of Sports, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) are the bodies that will provide the three-level security clearance.

Ministry of Sports and MEA have already given a go-ahead, however, there is still no official confirmation given to WFI by the MHA.

When speaking to Sportskeeda, the Vice President of WFI, Vinod Tommar shared the current status regarding the matter, "Till now we have not received any confirmation from the Home Ministry. The participating countries are eagerly waiting for the documents. Until and unless the clearance is made, Indian embassies in the participating countries will not issue Visas to the wrestlers."

"It is critical that the Home Ministry acts fast on this matter, however, we are yet to receive any official update from them."

May 10 is the date when WFI first attempted to get clearance from the Home Ministry. After no response, another letter was sent in as follow up on June 18. However, still there was complacency on the part of MHA and WFI again got an email sent on June 6.

"I have come to know through sources that they are waiting for a reply from Intelligence Bureau (IB) as Pakistan is also one of the participants. Our representative has requested them to ensure swift action by the IB so that the other countries like Iran, Uzbekistan, and Japan do not suffer.

"Japan is pressing us hard to send the clearance as fast as possible as they want to send in their squad early for training. However, we have already sent in multiple requests and this is the maximum we can do. We will be following up on Monday, 9th July, to see if any action has been taken in this regard," Vinod concluded.

WFI is hopeful of a response in the coming week. If it does not come, then it will be rather shameful for all the bodies involved as due to this many good junior wrestlers of various nations may get left out.