WFI hands temporary suspension to 30 overage wrestlers, bars them from junior competitions

New Delhi: Cracking down the whip on overage wrestlers competing at junior level, the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) has handed temporary suspension to 30 of them in the past month after investigating more than 400 such cases.

The WFI acted on complaints, largely from coaches and wrestlers from the Delhi 'Akharas' that many wrestlers from Haryana have procured fake certificates to show they were born in the national capital and are eligible to compete at junior level.

Much to the exasperation of WFI, two overage wrestlers even won medals at the recent Khelo India Games in Bihar.

"We do not want to spoil careers of wrestlers, so we have just barred them from the junior level competitions, like U18 and Cadets. They should compete at the senior level, if they are over 18 they must represent their original state," a senior WFI official told PTI.

"Now they need to come to WFI, apologise for their actions and cheating. We will consider their cases. This has been going on for some time. One by one we suspended around 30 such offenders in the last 30-40 days."

The WFI official explained that most of these wresters, misguided by their coaches in Haryana, paid bribes to procure fake birth certificates from the Narela and Rohini zones in Delhi.

"Out of 436 cases, around 300 were from the Narela zone, while the rest were from the Rohini zone like Sultanpuri and Mangolpuri. Most of them were getting certificates from Begampura.

"All of them wanted to represent Delhi since getting selected in Haryana teams is not easy. We approached MCD and the Delhi cantonment Board after receiving complaints and upon investigation and verification it was proved they were fake certificates," the official said.

"Actually the coaches are to be blamed. They wants their wards to win medals at competitions to become famous. That greed drives them to have overage wrestlers competing at junior level," he added. Then WFI had also complained to the Games Technical Committee of the Khelo India to get a female wrestler thrown out of competition for submitting a fake birth certificate.

"This female wrestler had submitted a certificate issued by Delhi Cantonment Board. When we approached the Board, they confirmed to us that no such certificate has been issued by them."

Explaining the modus operandi, the WFI official said that the wrestlers pay hefty sum to cyber cafe owners to create fake bar codes on the certificate.

Anyone who scans the certificate will get details as they were filled by the cafe owners, making the certificate appear original.

Also, the WFI has decided not to consider birth certificates, issued only recently.

Coach suspended on sexual harassment complaint

Meanwhile, the WFI has suspended Sanjay Lather, a Haryana coach, after receiving a sexual harassment complaint against him during the Khelo India Games. "We had received a complaint that this coach, who was appointed by the state government, had entered the room of a female wrestler after the competition ended.

"The Internal Complaints Committee duly investigated the matter and decided to terminate him from all wrestling activities for life," the official said.