Kalmadi pleads for sports journalists

NEW DELHI: Suresh Kalmadi has requested Union Sports Minister M.S. Gill to allow the media access to the National Stadium so that it could interact with the Indian hockey team and report on the practice sessions.

In what has become a contentious issue for more than a fortnight, the media has not been allowed entry into the National Stadium on the plea that it could jeopardise security arrangements.

“It has been brought to my notice by Sports Journalists Federation of India that journalists are not being allowed inside the National Stadium…” Kalmadi wrote to the Sports Minister on Saturday.

“While security concerns of the venue and the players are well appreciated, I think we should allow mediapersons to enter the stadium and interact with the Indian team members,” Kalmadi, who is the Joint Chairman of the World Cup Organising Committee wrote.

He wrote that journalists could be checked and cleared from a security point of view as per laid down procedures.

Possibly Kalmadi was unaware of the furore over the bar on the media till he received a fax from the SJFI President, S. Sabanayakan on Friday, but Hockey India, Sports Authority of India (SAI) and almost anyone connected with the World Cup event had been fully familiar with the situations for days.

The Sports Minister, who was also informed by Sabanayakan about the unprecedented situation and requested to intervene, meanwhile, enquired from his officers and those from the SAI about the problem on Friday.

They explained to him that arrangements made by them for team interaction with the media had gone waste on three occasions.

The crux of the media demand, that of gaining access to a stadium that will soon be having practice sessions by all the participating teams, has not been understood by the authorities.

The Sports Authority India (SAI) reiterated that mediapersons were not being allowed to enter the stadium because of security reasons. “Security is the main concern. It is a World Cup and so many teams are coming…Security is non-negotiable,” Joint Secretary and SAI Teams Wing Executive Director Pravir Krishn said on Saturday. — Special Correspondent