Visa issues an obstacle hosting int’l sports events in Odisha

Bhubaneswar: Denial of visas and other visa-related issues are proving to be a major obstacle for many eminent sportspersons and sports writers from visiting the state to attend prestigious international meets.
While the issues prevented as many as seven international rugby coaches from participating in the recently concluded Asian U-18 Rugby Sevens Championship in the capital city, now the same issue is forcing prominent sports stars and sports writers to miss the two-day Ekamra Sports Literary Festival (ESLF) scheduled for November 2 and 3.
The organisers Wednesday feared that three eminent international sports writers and sports starts might miss the event due to the rejection of their visa applications for ‘unknown reasons’. Two have applied for visa twice, but in vain.
Braxil-based Guardian sports journalist Andrew Downie and Scottish journalist and author Richard Moore have been denied visas and their second applications too have not been cleared by the authorities concerned, making their planned Odisha visit almost impossible.
Sundeep Misra, sports journalist and a member of Emerging Sports which is organising the ESLF along with Odisha government, said, “For us this is really surprising that we are facing visa issues with Richard Moore and Andrew Downie. Richard Moore is famous sports writer and not a politician. He has written biographies of Usain Bolt and other famous personalities. Not giving visas to them is really surprising to me.”
Downie is the author of ‘Doctor Socrates’ based on the life and game of the legendary Brazilian footballer Socrates. “It is worrisome as the eminent writers have been denied visas though there is nothing political about this event. The second time, we applied for their visas in the business category, but are yet to get any response till date. If we don’t receive any response by tonight (Wednesday), we will have to do some rescheduling in the sessions,” Misra added.
The Sports Lit Fest organisers further said that they provided the concerned departments with every minute detail regarding the overseas participants as well as the event, but still their visa applications were rejected. “This has left us shocked. We are unable to understand why the visa applications of such eminent people were rejected, as the authorities have not given us any explanation whatsoever,” Misra rued.
On the other hand, former Pakistani cricket great Wasim Akram, who was also scheduled to speak in the fest, is also likely to miss the event. The organisers said that Wasim was eager to come and everything was finalised. However, he later informed the organisers that he was facing some personal problem, while his file was not cleared by the new government in Islamabad. “We are still waiting. If the file gets cleared, we may see him here. When Wasim applied for clearance, Pakistan Prime Minister was in Saudi Arabia. So I think Wasim needed to go through the process, but his file was returned,” the organisers said.
Meanwhile, an organiser associated with the Asian U-18 Rugby Sevens Championship told
Orissa POST on the condition of anonymity that as many as seven foreign coaches were denied visa for the recently held tournament. Some other key officials also failed to participate in the tournament due to the same problem.
She apprehended that the visa issue may also plague the upcoming men’s Hockey World Cup scheduled for November 28-December 16 in the city. According to her, the visa issue may crop up again during the event the mega event, especially because Pakistan is a key participant in the Hockey World Cup.