Gill steps into the CWG muddle

For the first time since the bitter spat between CWG organising committee chairman Suresh Kalmadi and CEO Mike Hooper, the sports minister on Monday said “the public spat should not have happened.”

MS Gill’s much-awaited response came after five days of allegations and counter-allegations between the warring sides and the government’s total silence.

“What has happened in the Commonwealth Games was not right and it shouldn’t have
happened,” Gill said after reaching Delhi from Kochi on Monday morning.

Kalmadi had said that Hooper’s presence had been counterproductive and that the New Zealander was an impediment to the organising committee’s functioning despite spending two years in Delhi. He demanded that Hooper be repatriated from Delhi.

The sports minister said that he would take up the issue with Michael Fennell, the president of the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), when he meets him in London on October 29.

“I will meet Mike Fennell and Suresh Kalmadi in London during the Queen’s Baton Relay on October 29. I don’t want the Games to be hampered due to the public spat that is going on. I will listen to both sides,” he said.

Though the minister is talking about resolving the problem, there has been no effort to speak to Mike Hooper though he remains the bone of contention between organising committee and the CGF.

“There has been no attempt to speak to me either from the sports ministry or from the organising committee. I think Kalmadi didn’t take the recommendations positively and instead decided to launch a personal attack on me rather than getting the job done,” Hooper told DNA on Monday.

“We have to meet the target for the Games and there is no time. Even today (Monday) I had meetings with organising committee members in the morning and we are all trying to complete the work,” said Hooper.