TOI Exclusive: Sports governance no rocket science, we must get this right, says Abhinav Bindra

Abhinav Bindra, India's first individual Olympic gold medallist, has strongly advocated the need to have an 'appointed' secretary general in the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), instead of an 'elected' office-bearer, which was the norm earlier. Bindra was part of the Indian delegation comprising representatives from the IOA, Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), sports ministry, Sports Authority of India (SAI) and IOC member in India, Nita Ambani (online), which met the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) officials at the world body's headquarters in Lausanne on September 27.

In an exclusive interview to TOI, Bindra, who attended the meeting as 'Athletes Representatives', informed about the discussions which took place at the marathon meeting and the road ahead for the IOA and the Indian sports administration at large and how to set the house in order. This is the first time that a member of the delegation has spoken about the closed-door meeting.

Bindra's views become all the more important as they come on the eve of the first official meeting of Justice (retd) L Nageswara Rao with the country's key sports officials, administrators, athletes and petitioners (Rahul Mehra & others) at the JLN Complex in the Capital on Friday to put the IOA's election process in motion. Excerpts… Tell us about the roadmap discussed in Lausanne to help IOA avoid suspension over its failure to hold elections…The roadmap has clearly been defined in the IOC Summary which was placed before the Supreme Court.

In brief, the IOA constitution must be amended to include necessary governance reforms to which effect the IOC/OCA will work together with the honourable judge appointed by the SC. In principle, all points raised by the High Court's judgement