Infighting In IOA: PT Usha's Heated Debate Over CEO Appointment (image-instagram/ptushaofficial)
The rift between Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president PT Usha and EC members seems to have become even wider after the IOA’s Executive Council meeting on Thursday.
Usha and EC members have been at loggerheads ever since the appointment of CEO Raghuram Iyer in January. In the meeting held on Thursday, majority of its members opposed Iyer’s appointment as CEO, however, the track and field great refused to back down and rejected the demand for his removal.
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The agenda of the meeting was to have ratification of Iyer’s appointment on January 5. However, both sides are sticking to their earlier stands. The functioning of the IOA has suffered due to the infighting even as IOC has sent several remainders to the body urging it to put its house in order.
The IOC has pointed out that a strong National Olympic Committee is required to bid India for the 2036 Olympics.
Furious about the meeting’s outcome, Usha said, “They want to re-initiate the whole process, they want to re-advertise afresh. It’s like saying we don’t want this person and let us start the process from the scratch.”
She added that this is going to have repercussions from International Olympic Committee (IOC), further jeopardizing India’s chances of bidding for and hosting the 2036 Olympics.
“I am not going to accept this. I have told this to the IOC . I am not a quitter, I am not going anywhere without cleaning the IOA,” she asserted.
“The ratification of Mr lyer as the CEO was not approved. Further it was decided that process of the appointment of the CEO be re-initiated with new terms of reference,” the statement said.
The EC members said that the process of the advertisement of the CEO should be initiated at the earliest where it was anticipated that the appointment could be conducted in the next two months. The members felt that “CEO is a must and should be appointed.”
In the meeting, the 12 voted against the ratification of the CEO, implying that the acting CEO Kalyan Chaubey continue to discharge the duties as per the provisions laid out in the constitution.
Meanwhile, Usha said that EC members had gone back on their words as they had, during an online meeting in January, had agreed to the appointment of the CEO but had differences in the salary allotted to the CEO.
When Usha enquired about the salary limit, she alleged that the EC members did not respond to it. Thus, Rs 20 lakh per month along with other perks was decided.
Usha stated that she had tried to renegotiate Iyer’s salary at Thursday’s meeting. However, the 12 EC members were adamant to start the process fresh, she claimed.
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She said Iyer and her personal assistant Ajay Narang, whose appointment was “cancelled” by the majority EC members, have not received their salaries since their appointment.
The IOC Director Jerome Poivy also joined the meeting online and watched the confrontation.
