MUMBAI: Arguably the most serious threat in recent times to BCCI’s untrammelled functioning style is just not going away as the Sports Ministry has made it clear to the board that there won’t be any exemptions on the issue of implementation of anti-doping laws in cricket, going by a report in Indian Express.
BCCI chief executive Rahul Johri, with the blessings of Committee of Administrators chairman Vinod Rai, had proposed that the National Anti Doping Agency can conduct dope tests on cricketers on a short-term trial basis. After the results of these tests, they would then decide if NADA would be given ‘permanent access’ to the players.
However, as per a ministry official, no such deals will be acceptable. “The BCCI has been told that there is no way the government will sign an agreement or any kind of Memorandum of Understanding with them,” a Sports Ministry official told the daily. “The law applies equally to everyone and there can’t be any exceptions.”
Johri is now reportedly set to meet with Sports Secretary Radheyshyam Julaniya in order to find a solution to this stalemate. The ministry has earlier lashed out at the BCCI for their anti-doping mechanisms, while the board has accused the government of not granting NOCs to South Africa’s A and women’s teams for their visas as apressure tactic.
The BCCI, at present, has outsourced its sample collection programme to Sweden-based International Doping Tests and Management (IDTM). The samples collected by IDTM are analysed at Delhi’s National Dope Test Laboratory, thus keeping NADA out of the loop in the testing process. BCCI’s anti-doping set-up has come under scrutiny following 19-year-old batsman Prithvi Shaw’s failed dope test last month.
“Once the government signs a protocol, they are bound by it and are under obligation to implement it. The anti-doping rules clearly say that all athletes in the country are subject to testing by NADA,” an official told IE.
Cricket is the only sport in India that is not in the ambit of NADA, which is mandated to keep sports dope free. The cricket board has used its go to argument in all matters related to its functioning: that since the BCCI is not a government-funded national federation, it is not subject to NADA’s jurisdiction and has claimed to have a “robust mechanism to ensure Indian cricket is free from doping”.
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