MUMBAI: India’s refusal to issue visas to Pakistani shooters in last month’s ISSF Shooting World Cup due to diplomatic tensions between the two governments, has affected the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) dearly.
The United World Wrestling (UWW), which had recently asked all other national wrestling federations to suspend all contact with India, has now taken away the hosting rights from the country for the Junior Asian Wrestling Championships, scheduled to take place in July 2019.
Ironically, it was India which had agreed to take up the responsibility of hosting the event after original hosts Lebanon backed out of the same. Reportedly, it is Thailand which has stepped up for the same as India’s replacement.
While fearing that India may not get to host world events in the future at all, the WFI can only hope that the situation gets better post the Lok Sabha 2019 elections.
“UWW has told that it has shifted the junior Asian championship from India to Thailand. We had not bid for this event and we chipped in just to oblige UWW-Asia but we will certainly encounter problems when we would want to host major tournaments next year,” WFI Assistant Secretary Vinod Tomar told the Press Trust of India.
“The government will have to do something about it (the visa issue related to Pakistan athletes). But it’s highly unlikely that something can be done before the general elections,” Tomar added.
UWW President Nenad Lalovic said that there is a regular protocol that India must follow, which includes approving visas for wrestlers from every participating nation.
The WFI had attempted to seek visa guarantees from the government but before the Sports Ministry could revert to the federation on the same, a clearly miffed UWW decided to shifted the event following the IOC’s diktats.
