The Badminton Parents group, called Swacch Badminton India (SBI), has presented their concerns and pressured the BAI to handle the issue seriously and make the National Sub Junior and Junior Badminton circuit tournaments a fair and level playing field.
It is not the first time parents are agitating against the age fraud menace during this year, and now hitting the Yonex-Sunrise All India Sub Junior Ranking badminton tournament is being held in Jaipur from February 5-12, 2023.
Eight players of Sub Junior National Ranking Tournament 2023, Jaipur who are seeded players of the event, and manipulated their age qualification were identified with valid proofs and notified to the tournament organizers and BAI. BAI has taken action against them and disqualified the fraudulent players.
In most cases, dishonest and unfair parents are involved in producing fabricated documents like false birth certificates, school certificates, passports, or even Aadhaar cards to get an undue advantage in age category events.
SBI claims, "We have come together seeing the sorry state of affairs of Sub-Junior/Junior Badminton in India. When our children participate in State and National level tournaments, we have observed that the “Age Fraud” menace is widely and deeply rooted in the Sub-Junior/Junior Badminton India landscape. Due to this problem, a lot of promising children are getting discouraged.”
Who will find the solution? Parents' protests, strong SoP proposed by SAI & BAI jointly or unanimous Birth registration system.
BAI general secretary Sanjay expressed his concern to the news media about the seriousness of the matter and assures a strong SoP during a course of time. He says, "The BAI is working together with SAI (Sports Authority of India) and legal advisors on SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) to curb this problem. SAI being a government organization means a big support for us in case there are any hurdles in the implementation of the SOPs.”
Age fraud is being an issue for many years now. In 2014, BAI banned five junior players after they misrepresented their birth dates during the Nationals. BAI deactivated around 6,300 IDs in 2018 by BAI as there were cases of late registration,
It was known to every badminton stake about the FIRs filed about age fraud claim on the popular Sen Brothers.
Aggravated parents raised their concerns against multiple age-fraud players and parents during the All India Sub-Junior Under-13 ranking tournament in Hyderabad and Mohali in June 2022. BAI handled the issue with soft hands, and after a lot of controversies, the Mohali U13 ranking tournament was continued.
But this time based on the efforts and strong evidence produced by SBI, BAI handle it seriously and disqualify the fraudulent players. There is unconfirmed news that FIRs are filed against the parents who manipulated the date of birth-related documents.
Who will tie the bell to cat?
Even though the age fraud menace is continuing to exist, it is expected for a robust solution immediately. Otherwise age fraud players will loot the actual age group players opportunities of representing in Internationals, sourcing the sponsorships and securing the career.
Who will find the solution? Parents' protests, strong SoP proposed by SAI & BAI jointly or unanimous Birth registration system.
