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DEAR REDIFF

Tiger by the tail

K Bhaskaran

Over the weekend, Indian Badminton Confederation president Prakash Padukone must have been feeling that in the confrontation with Badminton Association of India president V K Verma, he has caught inadvertently caught a tartar.

The visit of the International Badminton Federation vice-president and Asian Badminton Confederation secretary-general Punch Gunalan could force a merger of the IBC and the BAI, with the latter retaining its membership of the world and continental organisations.

The IBC - and Prakash - could have been led to believe that they would carry the day in their battle with the BAI. But Gunalan, who had come to mediate in the dispute as an emissary of the IBF, made it clear that while the differences and disputes would have to be amicably settled, there is no question of the BAI being disaffiliated and the IBC being given the former's place by the IBF and the ABC.

This must be a big blow to the IBC, also to the many state bodies that have withdrawn from the BAI and become members of the new body, to the players and to Prakash himself.

The concern for the well-being of the badminton players, and for the progress of the game in the country, that IBF executive director David Shaw had expressed in communications to the rival bodies and to Indian Badminton Players' Welfare Association's boss Vimal Kumar, indicated that the IBF was tilting towards the IBC. This view was underlined by Shaw's letter to Vimal Kumar that whoever controls the game in India will have to acknowledge the presence and contribution of the IBPWA.

Gunalan's stand, however, was not totally unexpected. For, as a parent body, the IBF would not allow the entire structure to be pulled down. Rather, it would guide the patch up and rapprochement operations between the BAI and the IBC. And this, in the long run and in the larger interest of the game, is welcome.

But the IBC, its allies and Prakash will be wary.

Perhaps it was a realization that powerful, influential officials use the national association as their fiefdom that finally drove Prakash to mastermind the formation of the IBC, almost as a last ditch bid to rescue the sport from autocratic maladministration. Over the years, he may have grown suspicious of the verbal assurance and intentions of the officials and hence has been guarded in meeting the BAI and Verma halfway.

If Gunalan, from his meetings, with Verma and the BAI delegates and also with Prakash and the IBC delegates, learns of all the issues involved at first hand and appreciates the genuine misgivings of the IBC, then the the former All-England runner-up from Malaysia - he lost to Rudy Hartono in the final in the sixties - would have done a great service to the country where the game was invented by the British Army.

Let's hope he succeeds, even if it means Verma no longer is willing to give carte blanche to Prakash.

Verma's repeated offers of the BAI functioning with transparency, unlike under his predecessor Fazil Ahmed, could be taken in good faith by Prakash and the IBC in the interest of the players. After all, the IBC and Prakash cannot be unaware that as secretary of the Air India Sports Control Board and as former director, team sports wing, Sports Authority of India, Vermahas done more than most for sport.

Mutual trust could benefit the game, the players, the officials and the administration of the game.

Together, Prakash and Verma only can ensure that the farce the recent Air India prize money tournament in New Delhi turned out to be is not repeated, and further, pool their resources to make badminton more attractive all round.