No confidence in current IOA set-up: Maken

Sports Minister Ajay Maken says he doesn't have the confidence that the Indian Olympic Association can live up to the standards of transparency that hosting an international event like the Olympics or Asian Games demands.

"Hosting an event such as Olympics or Asian Games demands transparency and involves handling a huge sum of money, and, as the sports minister of India, I don't have much confidence in the present set-up of IOA," said Maken, while addressing FICCI's (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) third Global Sports Summit 'TURF 2011': International Convention on the Business of Sport.

"We can organise Asian Games much before the Olympics, but we don't have the confidence of handing over such a huge sum of money to such organisations for international events, so we can't commit to it," Maken said.

The sports minister believes implementing the National Sports Development Bill could bring in that transparency.

"Implementing this bill would mean bringing in transparency. We can have a new set of clean and younger lot who would replace the current bunch of office-bearers in the IOA. This will give confidence to the government as well as to the corporates to invest in such organisations," he said.

"The corporate bodies invest on athletes but they don't give money to the sports federations directly because they are not confident if the money actually goes to the sports and not to the office-bearers of the federations. Unless we provide them that sort of confidence, the corporate sector will never invest in sports," Maken said.

Asked about the possibility of India hosting the 2012 South Asian Games, Maken replied, "We are looking forward to hosting the SAG in 2012, but I am concerned what will happen if the president of the IOA, who is currently in jail on corruption charges, comes out and resumes his position and organises the SAG."