New Delhi, Oct 15 (IANS) The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) Thursday rebuffed the Commonwealth Games Federation’s (CGF) decision to appoint a high-powered technical panel to monitor the progress of the Games every month, saying there are already too many agencies overseeing the preparations.
In another move that could incense the CGF, the Organising Committee (OC) of the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games also recommended the “repatriation” of CGF chief executive officer Mike Hooper, who is based in Delhi for two years now.

The decisions were taken at the IOA executive council meeting Wednesday, two days after CGF president Michael Fennell, in a strongly-worded statement, listed areas of concern and announced the setting up of the review panel that was to start functioning from January.

IOA president and OC chairman Suresh Kalmadi said the executive council felt that the review panel will only add to the multiplicity of authority.

“There is already the Coordination Commission (CoCom) of the CGF monitoring the preparations. Then there are other monitoring agencies at various levels right from Prime Minister office to the Group of Ministers. The IOA executive council recommended that CGF may be asked to strengthen the CoCom by adding technical experts to it so that its authority is not diluted,” Kalmadi, flanked by the OC bigwigs, told a packed press conference here.

“Mr. Fennell had doubts about the accommodation during the CGF general assembly. But thanks to everyone, hotel Ashoka was made ready within days. The delegates were very happy during the stay. Right from the reception to the logistics and accommodation, everything was in order. This is how fast we are at the finishing stages.

“There were concerns on 20 Functional Areas (FA), but now it has come down to only five. The OC had presented a recovery plan for these FAs and we are confident that by the time of CoCom’s visit in December, it will be on schedule.”

“Ticketing, Ceremonies, Medical, Transport, and Technology have been listed out as those FAs.”

Kalmadi also said Hooper has been of little help in the last two years and asked the CGF to appoint somebody else in his place.

“His presence has not proved beneficial to the OC, instead he has only been an impediment to the functioning. We have informed the CGF before. We would be holding a Games after 28 years and we need someone to help us. I have already written to Fennell for a replacement for Hooper.”

Kalmadi said they are gong to stick to foreign experts only where necessary.

“We have already hired 40 foreign experts and that is worth Rs 100 crores. We will stick to foreign experts only in critical areas where we do not have the expertise at home, like in netball, lawn bowling and rugby. But in disciplines like shooting, badminton, archery we don’t need experts from outside as we have people who have organised major international events.”

He informed that Jarnail Singh, former secretary, government of India, has been appointed as the CEO of the OC.

The OC has also accepted the resignation of sport manager for shooting Graeme Hudson.

“He was having problems working with the shooting federation and they could not even see eye to eye.”