If Saina Nehwal was attracting sympathy and support following her tweets about how her father was not allowed to enter the Commonwealth Games Village on Monday night, the 2010 women’s singles gold medallist’s threat to quit the Games if the issue wasn’t resolved according to her wishes seem to have turned the public opinion against her within a span of 24 hours.

The 28-year-old wrote to Indian Olympic Association secretary Rajiv Mehta on Tuesday stating that she would not play her matches if her father’s accreditation was not cleared, following which the IOA officials moved one of the contingent member to a hotel outside the Games Village and accommodated her father.

Despite making the necessary arrangements, it is pretty clear that the language hasn’t gone down well with the IOA officials who do not want to jeopardise the country’s medal chances but still want to ensure that the former world number one badminton player is given a clear message that such tantrums would not be tolerated.

Without going into the merits or demerits of Nehwal’s actions, there is no denying the fact that threatening to pull out of such a major event isn’t the right stand to take for any athlete and gives an impression that they feel that they are above the system.

However, the incident should provide the IOA and the Sports Ministry a perfect opportunity to create fool-proof guidelines on who should be part of the contingent for such Games and who should make their own personal arrangements because this is not the first and last time such an issue will crop up.

Apart from Nehwal, PV Sindhu has also got her mother as part of the contingent this time around while tennis stars Sania Mirza and Leander Paes were also accompanied by their mother and father respectively for multi-discipline games in the past.

The argument behind sending the two used to be that Mirza’s mother would double up as team manager, Dr Vece Paes was a qualified medical professional.

Even some of the athletes would prefer to bring their spouses as their personal coaches for these Games, creating a problem for other members of the contingent who would at times end up without a coach.

And most of the times even if the parents do go as Managers, they end up only looking after their own kids.

Since the last few editions of the Commonwealth and Asian Games, the sports ministry has been making a lot of noise about not allowing the parents and relatives/spouses of the sportsperson to be part of the contingent but most of it has remained mere lip service or they have ended up imposing the rule on wrong persons.

Even before the contingent left for the Games in Gold Coast, the National Rifle Association of India was struggling to convince the Ministry to clear the name of former Commonwealth Games medallist Ronak Pandit, who is the husband of shooter Heena Sidhu, as he was the designated manager of the team and the arm licence was issued in his name by the organisers.

Need for clear guidelines

NRAI chief Raninder Singh was right to insist that Pandit’s role in the squad was far bigger than just being a mere companion of his wife, while the IOA officials are justified in arguing that Nehwal and Sindhu’s parents are not really contributing to the contingent in any way.

While the arguments makes complete sense, it is hard to understand why authorities have not put together a clear guidelines for such contingents and implement it without paying heed to star power or taking into account other special considerations.

While the stars get away with their demands in the Indian system, parents of most other athletes stay in hotels nearby and come to watch their kids in action.

There is no reason to question the star player’s logic that the presence of their parents is important for their emotional well-being in such major events. But there are other ways of achieving that balance.

Even the players can opt to stay out of the Games Village like India’s only individual Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra did for most part of his career and ensure that their preferred environment is provided to them so that they can perform at the best.

With the NGO’s and sponsors backing them up, money shouldn’t be a issue in putting this system in place, especially if the said player is of the stature of Nehwal.

But in the Games village, the number of persons allowed during the Games is extremely limited and those positions should be left only for athletes and support staff members who directly contribute to the performance of those athletes on the field of play.

And, make no mistake, this argument also extends to the plethora of officials who prefer to go to these Games as tourists and block the path of physios, masseurs and other support staff members.

Gone are the days when Indian athletes would mostly be making the numbers in such major events and hence those star performers or medal hopefuls would get preferential treatment or the officials would simply not bother about their demands of a proper support staff.

Its time, even the decision makers take note of the changing scenario and use the latest incident to put in place a robust system soon after the Commonwealth Games to ensure that we are once again not staring at such a scenario at the Asian Games and the Youth Olympics in a few months from now.