OLYMPIC COUNCIL OF ASIA?S DOUBLE STANDARDS
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 09 Sep 2014
Blatche with MVP.
The Olympic Council of Asia of which Sheikh Fahad Al-Sabah of Kuwait is president has stubbornly refused to listen to reason, to follow the clear message sent to OCA by FIBA secretary general Patrick Baumann who is also a member of the International Olympic Committee, about the eligibility of naturalized player Andray Blatche to play for the Philippine National Basketball team in the forthcoming Asian Games and simply brushed aside the efforts of the Philippine Olympic Committee, the Philippine Sports Commission and the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas to reason with them.
Obviously siding with the Incheon Asian Games Organizing Committee which appears hell-bent on securing the gold medal in basketball, quoted an archaic rule of OCA regarding the eligibility of athletes without considering the real intent.
Basically the rule states that any athlete representing a country other than the country of his birth must have a three year residency in the country he seeks to represent.
What OCA and the IAGOC fail to recognize is that this particular rule applies to athletes who had previously represented another country. It is absolutely clear that Blatche never represented any other country in his basketball career and under the rules of the International Olympic Committee and FIBA, the international governing body for basketball, the residency rule does not apply to Blatche.
But OCA and the Incheon Asian Games Organizing Committee refuses to listen.
Now here is what we discovered and which is something Sheikh Fahad and OCA have an obligation to explain.
Femi Seun Ogunde.
If the residency rule of OCA has been faithfully enforced how did OCA permit Femi Seun Ogunde who moved from Nigeria to Qatar in October 2009 to compete one year later in the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China where he won gold medals in the 200 and 400 meters?
Want some more?
Biusuma Shugi Gelassa left Ethiopia at the end of 2009 and transferred to Bahrain and represented Bahrain also in the 2010 Asian Games where he won the gold medal in the men?s 10,000 meters.
Bahrain also recruited ? or should we say signed up ? Tareq Mubarak Taher of Kenya in 2005 yet he was allowed to compete in the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar where he won the men?s 3,000 meter steeplechase gold medal.
These are a few examples of OCA?s blatant double standards and its distressing partisan application of a rule that clearly does not apply to Andray Blatche but only serves the selfish motives of South Korea?s Incheon Asian Games Organizing Committee and the OCA president.
Apparently, the fundamental rules of sportsmanship and fair play do not apply which is a crying shame because it undermines respect for OCA and the South Koreans.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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