Cover Story
New Games Boss Wants Eligibility Rule Changed
But he could face tough opposition
Samoa Games in 2007 will be a complete overhaul if Vidhya Lakhan has his way. Elected chair of the South Pacific Games Council during the Suva Games last month, the veteran sports administrator wants to change the way the games are organised and run. Not only is the SPG becoming too big and too costly, Lakhan also feels urgent changes are needed in what has been a persistent thorn in the games: the eligibility of athletes.
"In the past, we've had athletes who have come from overseas to a country, picked up the passport of that country, boarded another plane to take part in the South Pacific Games and then went back to wherever they had come from," Lakhan told Islands Business. "This defeats the purpose of what the games is all about. I very strongly believe that the South Pacific Games is for islanders living in the islands. "If you have moved on, you have emigrated, then you have made your choice. And I believe you should not have the right to represent the country of your birth."
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For wanting a radical change to the eligibility clause of the games charter, Lakhan will no doubt face tough opposition from the French territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia especially, and perhaps the two Samoas. These countries do get some of their athletes from mainland France in the case of the two French territories, and the United States for American Samoa, and mainly New Zealand for Samoa.
But Lakhan is optimistic opposers to the change would understand why there's a need to revise the eligibility clause. "I think they will agree with me that I'm being fair when I say the games should be for people who are living in the islands. "If they have their athletes living in the two territories, then they have every right to represent their countries, rather than the displaced athletes who are brought in from overseas."
He would not name countries, but Lakhan said the practice of bringing in athletes from outside the region defeats the spirit of the South Pacific Games. "Of course, it's about winning medals. But it's also about giving opportunities to our islands people to take part in their own games. Why should we be swarmed by people who've left us and lived overseas for 10 or 15 years? They come, they take part, they go back. But they never go back to the countries they represented. They never put anything back in the development of their athletes, of their sports in their home country."
"I may be a lone voice in the wilderness, but that's what I believe in. And that's what I think the SPG is all about." The Suva-based Air New Zealand sales manager is widely credited for securing a stable financial footing for the Fiji National Olympic Committee of which he has been the honorary secretary for many years.
At the 2003 Games, Lakhan was the SPGOC director responsible for sports. Many believe he is the right man to lead the games council as it is in dire need of change since its inception 40 years ago.
Here's extracts of Lakhan's interview:
You went into the SPG Council as Dr Robin Mitchell's deputy but came back as his boss, was that part of the plan?
"I wouldn't put it that way because Robin is still president of FASANOC. The Games Council is a separate entity made up of 22 islands nations. It has its own structure, its own officials. I'm happy to work with the members of the council for the council and I've got a vision that I want to work on in my four-year term. I'll see whether I could uplift the Council and strengthen it. It has an event which is the largest single event in the Pacific islands. We want to give it the status it should have in the Pacific."
What is your vision?
"What I want to do is to make the council a professionally run organisation. Its administrative work must be done professionally. To enable us to do that, we need a practical structure, a working document."
You don't have a working document at the moment?
"I think the charter that we have at the present time has gone past its used by date. It was written in 1961/62, and I think it has served its purpose. Sport has developed considerably in almost all areas in the past 40 years, so we need to review the charter and modernise it so that it lends itself to organising a good game, one that caters for the interests of the athletes, interests of the Games Council and also helps the organising committee in organising a good game. There are a number of areas that needs to be looked at.
"Soon after my election, we had a meeting with my new executive members and what we've decided is that we'll circulate the charter to all member countries while the topic is still hot. We are inviting written submissions from all the countries. When we get all the submissions, we'll look at who is saying what and from the submissions we receive, we'll appoint a constitutional review committee. We've given ourselves two months within which we must have all the submissions and a committee looking at it.
"Secondly, unfortunately, for the last four years the accounts of the council have not been audited. We've given ourselves 90 days from the date of the general assembly to have the accounts audited and circulated to all member countries.
You want drastic changes to the eligibility clause of the games?
"Yes, these are my personal views and I'm hoping that I would be able to convince some of the countries who may not see the way I see things. Because you'll agree with me that if you continue to bring in athletes from overseas to represent your country, then what messages, what signals are you sending to athletes at home? There's no point in training, no point in developing people because we will bring in others from overseas to represent us."
Is this allowed under the present eligibility rules?
"Yes, the current rules allow it. If you were born in a country and live there for five years, you can represent that country. Or if you are an expatriate and you've lived in a country for four years, you can take part. That might be good but there are other models like the Olympic Games. In the Olympic Games, you must be a national of the country you're representing, so you must hold a passport of the country. For us in the islands, it's easy to get passports, but there must be something attached to that passport as well because some countries have dual nationalities, dual passport holders. So somehow we have to protect islanders living in the islands."
And do you have a mechanism in place whereby if a chef de mission of a particular country is unsure about the eligibility of an athlete, he or she can seek an interpretation from the eligibility commission before bringing that athlete to the games?
"No, because the eligibility commission is only formulated and put into place just prior to the games. Of course, if there was a mechanism set and in existence say during a two or three-year period, or even one year before the games, where countries could address issues and get a ruling, that could also help in eliminating some of the issues that we have to deal with during the games."
What about the cost of hosting the games?
"The games are getting too big and too costly. It is sad to hear that athletes are being denied the opportunity to take part in the games purely on the basis of costs because they can't meet the cost of participation.
"What we need to do, and it's going to be a very delicate exercise, is to control the numbers and yet allow athletes to take part. So we would need to look at, firstly the cost of organising a game."
A number of countries have said to me that they think the games is getting too big and they fear that there won't be very many countries that would be able to organise a game of this size.
"What we may need to do is to look at the number of sports we offer, the number of team sports, the number of individual sports. "At the same time, we have to be very mindful of the number of sports we offer for women because we also want gender equality as well. "On the other hand, we have to look at the cost of participation. You know US$40 per person per day, some of the countries find it very, very difficult and they had to, at the very last minute, reduce the size of their delegation.
"As a result, there must have been hundreds of disappointed athletes because they couldn't come to the games. Somehow, we have to address all those issues and I want to do that within the next 12 months and take some solutions to the next council meeting in Palau in April next year and seek council support in managing some of these issues."
When you said there must be a review of the number of sports in the games, do you mean a decision should be made on whether some sports should be dropped or added?
"What I intend to do is to appoint a sports committee and get them to look at our sports programme in the South Pacific Games. They would need to do their research on how many team sports, how many countries take part, how many countries play those sports, how many countries have in the last couple of games taken part in a particular sport, should we retain it? Should we drop it?
"They should look at events in a particular sport, how many athletes does one event in say in an athletic programme or swimming programme? Does it attract the numbers? If the numbers are large, fine, but if the numbers are not there, what should we do? Should we encourage countries to bring in athletes or should we eliminate it from our programme?
"There are issues with medals. At the present time, the charter says that if you have two or three athletes taking part in an event, you award only a gold medal. The athletes are saying no. In a three-person event, one athlete came third, so he or she should get a bronze medal. The charter says no because the one who came third, who did he or she beat? Nobody, so he or she came last. So the people who wrote the charter 30 years ago I think felt they were right in saying you don't get a medal for coming in last.
"But the athletes don't see it that way. So what do we do if you don't have more than 5 or 6 athletes participating? "It might sound very technical but I can assure you that it will prevent a lot of unnecessary, unpleasant arguments at the very last minute just prior to medal presentation. People getting abused simply because they are just following the rules. So we've got to take away some of these unpleasantness from the games."
Why was the mini-games introduced? Now, there's talk of scrapping the mini-games altogether.
"I don't think that will happen. I think the mini-games is there for a purpose and it's serving its purpose. By organising a game, the host country ends up with good sporting facilities. I mean you look at Fiji, if we hadn't organised the 2003 Games, we wouldn't have got a swimming pool, hockey pitch, the multi-purpose hall, so the mini-games is designed for smaller countries who cannot because of their size, organise a major game. For the mini-games, the host country can select whichever sports it wants to put on the programme with a maximum of 15 sports.
"There has been talk of may be replacing the mini-games with the Oceania youth games. So maybe there's room for further consultation on whether we should convert the mini-games into a youth game and invite Australia and New Zealand to take part as well so that might lift the competition level amongst our youth.
"There are already approaches from the Oceania Olympic Committee for us to enter into dialogue with them. If ONOC comes in, there will be avenues for additional funding from the Olympic movement. I guess the SPG Council is at a crossroad where it needs to look at the way it wants to go."
In terms of private sector sponsorship of the games, how can this be achieved in other islands economies interested in hosting the games?
"Fiji did it very well. What we need to do is look at packaging the games and market it to corporate sponsors and TV people within the region.
"We can start with a small beginning, but who knows, it might develop into something big and have it as a source of future funding for the games.
"I've been saying the organisation of the games at the present time has to be a partnership between the host NOC and the host government.
"The formula is that the government provides the facilities and the NOC with the cooperation of all its federations, organise, manage and run the games.
"That partnership worked here (Suva) very well. It worked in Guam, it worked in American Samoa, and that's the way the council wants to progress the games.
"You will be aware that the games is never awarded to a government of a country. It goes to a NOC. So we keep politics and the government agenda out of it so that we can focus on the athletes and the competition. I think Fiji proved it very successfully that it can be done."
