Taekwondo in India more of a business or a sport ??

 When we say sports business then we think of revenue or profit from various sports leagues, sports goods, and services, or sports equipment but in the biggest democratic country do we ever think in our country a business of making athletes fool, pocketing money from athletes by making fake promises to athletes, selling dreams to athletes and their parents.   

Yes, this is true this is the new trend in the sports business in our country, I am not talking about this practice in British Era but about the present situation. 

In our country continuously our athletes are been exploited in sports. Taekwondo one of the beautiful Olympic sport is one of the sports in our country where we are having continuous scams, athletes' exploitation. Even people at a higher level in Taekwondo are bypassing the court by doing the same thing in a different way. 

The article is self-explanatory, salute to Mr. Vinayak the journalist who brought this in front of everyone in the nation, Mr. Vinayak must be thanked million times because the situation is like these people are super smart, they have such people who sell emotions, they sell dreams to not only innocent athletes but also to their parents, the corrupt sports officials in taekwondo are so competent that they make sure to convince athletes and their guardians that if they will miss this chance if they might lose a platform for Olympics, they can be next Abhinav Bindra and now Neeraj Chopra.

First, they convince them to spend thousands on selection trials, Global Athletes Card, Unique Id for Taekwondo, Black belts, etc then they convince them to spend Lakhs for International Participation by showing them huge dreams. 

Not just sports Jobs even for admission to Universities the criteria are simple the athlete must represent India in International Championships which are recognized by International Olympic Committee for International Level Championships and for National Championships only those certificates will be valid are from a sports organization that is recognized by Ministry of Sports and approved/affiliated by Indian Olympic Association but still, the corruption is on its peak, scammers are on their helm, fearlessly. 

Last year when on India TV the story of an athlete who has been an international gold medalist athlete in strength weightlifting told her story of how her mother sold her ornaments, how her father borrowed money from people so that his daughter can go to Thailand for the World Championship in strength weightlifting, the scammers sold the dreams, sold the emotion to a father that as the father he must manage for his daughter, the father did everything and even she won a gold medal but the end it was a scam, the reality was completely different. No career, this international certificate of the world championship is just a piece of paper for a government job opportunity or even admission to a university ( reason mentioned above in the article i.e. the athlete must represent India in those international Championships which are recognized by International Olympic Association and for National, it must be from an organization which is recognized by the ministry of sports and approved/affiliated from Indian Olympic Association ) 

The then Sports minister Kiren Rijiu even confessed on Television and clearly spoke that he is helpless in such situations, he will definitely make strong rules and laws for such things but he was given a different ministry and no law on such looters and scammers came into existence.  

How much time do we need to wait for such basic things, as the scams are not happening on national levels but also at the state and district levels and the people involved are really toxic to the nation as they are not just spoiling the future of athletes but also framing a dangerous sports environment where no parent or guardian would ever think that their child should practice sports. 

The joint secretary of the Indian Olympic Association wrote a letter to the sports minister for a similar reason which is self-explanatory and is herewith

 Writing on sports and sticking strictly to the topic is a difficult task for me as I was also one of the taekwondo athletes who was exploited for over a decade & I always wish what happened to me should not happen to anyone but it's happening continuously on a very broader aspect a huge level, a huge number of athletes are suffering and nothing happening to the scammers, the thugs of sports ...............

The level of such corrupt persons can be understood from this article below for an incident in Lucknow, without the consent of the Executive Director of the Sports Authority of India Mr. Sanjay Saraswat, Secretary-General of Uttar Pradesh Olympic Association who is also the Treasurer of the Indian Olympic Association Mr. Anandeshwar Pandey as well as the Sports Director in Uttar Pradesh Government, the organizers of a taekwondo event promoted their photographs on the banners and posters of their events, this is the scenario. They also posted pictures of Anurag Thakur the sports minister despite being raised in the media no action has been taken on this incident by the government or any responsible authority.

In Uttar Pradesh not only surprising factor is that there are four Uttar Pradesh Taekwondo associations running parallel to each other but one of the associations organized the Open State Championship which is being continuously organized as the Tribute to Late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Bajpai charging Rs 800 /- as the entry fee without providing even basic facilities like food and accommodation to athletes. The championship is showcased, projected that this event will be the best platform for athletes and the promised many things for the development of athletes in fact in the 2019 edition Deputy Chief Minister  Keshav Prasad Maurya inaugurated the event in the edition of 2021 Deputy Chief Minister  Dr. Dinesh Sharma inaugurated the event and the organizer promised many things, the event was showcased as the best event of Uttar Pradesh where over 1800 athletes participated, paid Rs 800 entry fee and went took their medal if they won and promise for certificates to be given and many other dream promises but none of the athletes were even supported for an online world taekwondo Poomsae challenge.

This entire exploitation is quite known to everyone, in a sports summit in October 2019 when I met Dr.Batra the president of the Indian Olympic Association we have dispute in our national federation for a very long period of time which is definitely harming athletes, will he take some action for this or is he having any plan for unification so that athlete may get the needed platform he said knows everything but instead of rectification the system has been more worst now when the exploitation of taekwondo athletes will end, it is still a question to be answered.

I think its the high time for all the taekwondo professionals to unite and stand together for taekwondo. It's the time to say right to right and wrong to wrong together.