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Workers clean a billboard outside the Commonwealth Games athletes village in New Delhi September 22, 2010. - Source: Reuters -
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Guyon Espiner interviews Commonwealth Games Federation boss Mike Hooper.
MICHAEL HOOPER - Commonwealth Games
Federation
Well, I think it's just been a very unfortunate set of
circumstances. The Federation has been pushing the organising
committee and all other stakeholders for a very very long time now
and throwing up alarm bells for the last two years. The main
problem I believe that's led to a lot of this is the delays in
delivering the Games venues by the various government agencies
responsible for doing that. We have, since 18 months back,
stressing very strongly and very publicly our concerns about the
delays in the delivery of the venues. Mr Fennell, our president, in
December said he was quite distressed to see further delays
incurred. All the venues were supposed to be delivered, Paul, by
the end of December, which would have been plenty of time for all
final touches and things to be done. Other than that, swimming was
supposed to be in March. Everything got shifted out time and time
again. Renewed deadlines came and went. New reasons for delays kept
coming up. Absolutely exasperation from our perspective. We often
had our co-Comm chairman expressing the same point, saying, 'Time
is not your friend. Now time is your enemy.' And that was 18 months
out, 12 months out, very publicly, very strongly about this. And I
think this is how& Unfortunately, this has been a major
contributing factor.
PAUL
What you're saying to us is essentially it's the Indians' fault.
Now, what you've got is your chairman, Mr Fennell, Saturday
afternoon does a news conference in Delhi and says, 'The whole lot
of you have got to take responsibility for this,' and you are the
chief executive, Mr Hooper.
MICHAEL
That's correct, and I take responsibility for my areas of
responsibility, and that has been working very hard with the
organising committee to get things done. Now, at the end of the
day, I'm not a construction engineer. I'm not a builder. We're at
the hands and the mercy of, effectively, the government of India,
the Delhi government, the agencies responsible for delivery of the
venues. They consistently failed to meet deadlines. Now, we were
very active, very strong in pushing for this to be done. The actual
venues were not handed over effectively - and I say handed over
from the point of view of getting venue-completion certificates and
occupancy certificates&
PAUL
No, I understand. I understand there's bee very slow handovers.
There's been a problem with that, I know.
MICHAEL|
&until the 6th of September, and that's very
frustrating.
PAUL
But there are reports that say - a report today told me that
relations between you and the local Delhi organising committee have
been atrocious. There has been virtually a standoff for a couple of
years. Is that so?
MICHAEL
No, that's nonsense. Clearly, the organising committee chairman,
Suresh Kalmadi, is averse to criticism, like, obviously, a lot of
us are. It's a natural thing. But certainly I'm put here&
There's only myself here. I'm put here to try and pursue and push
the organising committee as much as possible to get the things
done, to speak out when necessary, and I've certainly done that,
and any review of past media releases, etc, show that. When Mr
Fennell one year ago, following our general assembly, pointed out
significant discrepancies - like delays in the delivery of venues,
like operational planning deficiencies, etc - Mr Kalmadi launched
an unheralded personal attack on myself, and, as well documented,
tried to get me thrown out of the country.
PAUL
Well, yes, but you see, the Commonwealth Games - I wonder if it's
fair of you to blame India. The way you're talking, you see, just
puts all the blame on India. Now, the Commonwealth Games Federation
- your constitution says that you are the supreme authority in all
areas concerning the Commonwealth Games.
MICHAEL
That's correct.
PAUL
You are the authority of last resort.
MICHAEL
Yep. That's correct, and I used this term with another New Zealand
reporter this morning: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't
make it drink. And the very frustrating thing is we have
consistently spoken out loudly and clearly, consistent in our
reporting: 'Get these things done. Get these venues delivered.
Focus on the operational delivery of the Games.' And unfortunately,
we are where we are. Now, we can all do these post-mortems later,
Paul. The reality is right now we need to focus on getting as much
as we can done. It is unfortunate that we had to go as public as we
did yet again&
PAUL
Yeah, but it's an extraordinary situation, isn't it?
MICHAEL
&four days back on the Games Village issue.
PAUL
It's an extraordinary situation. We've got today the head of the
Australian Commonwealth Games committee, the head of the Australian
Commonwealth Games saying India should never have been given the
Games. Do you agree with that?
MICHAEL
You're incorrect. It wasn't the head of the Commonwealth Games
Association. It was Mr John Coates from the Australian Olympic
Committee, and he's got nothing to do with the Commonwealth Games,
so I'm not sure why he's making such comments.
PAUL
Alright, but you've known for a long time, and you've been talking
about last December and Mr Fennell being concerned and so forth.
Why only now did it come to light?
MICHAEL
The buildings weren't complete at that time. The buildings have
only just been handed over to the organising committee a month, six
weeks back, which is ridiculous. I mean, the 6th of September of an
occupancy certificate - it is ridiculous, but ultimately the CGF
looks to& The local hosts, under a host-city contract, is
responsible for delivering all the promises it made. At the moment,
unfortunately, those promises haven't been met, and they certainly
haven't been met on time. We hope that things will change in the
next few days. It's very much a day-by-day situation.
PAUL
You can talk all you want, Mike. You can talk all you want, but,
with respect, the problem is surely with the Commonwealth Games
Organising Committee, the Commonwealth Games, with your
organisation. I've got Barry Maister quoted this morning in New
Zealand - the secretary-general of the NZOC, another Olympic
Committee bloke. He says, 'The Commonwealth Games Federation has a
lot to answer for.' He said, 'It's their job to ensure that the
village was ready for habitation. In my view, they did not do so.'
Again, you've got Barry Maister having a go at you.
MICHAEL
Well, Barry's quite entitled to his view. The reality is we made it
very clear to all the CGAs the state of progress on an ongoing
basis. We made it clear 16 weeks ago through our final coordination
commission visit that a key issue that had to be addressed with
urgency - and it was circulated to all our members - was the
completion of the Games Village to the appropriate standards. Mr
Fennell again came back in August and said, 'This is still not
complete. It's not satisfactory. You've got to get it finished.'
Now, you know, we are where we are, and it's exasperating to find
ourselves in this situation, but I do not believe, other that what
we did - constant cajoling, pushing, publicly and privately, to get
these things done& It's what we're faced with here.
PAUL
What I can't understand is why an athlete would go to these Delhi
Commonwealth Games and risk all kinds of illness and molestation,
perhaps from terrorists or whatever, that can set a career back
years. Why would you go?
MICHAEL
Well, look, I think that's a bit unfair. I think from a security
point of view, a lot has gone into& An investment has been made
by the government of India. They provided an undertaking right at
the bid stage of a safe and secure environment in and around the
Games venues and the Games village, etc.
PAUL
Yeah, but I'm talking mainly about the filth, you know what I mean?
The filth and uninhabitabilty.
MICHAEL
Well, the filth, Paul - I mean, that still comes down to when the
flats were handed over. And we had no& That's just come to
light since the 15th, 16th of September. Now, you're right. That
shouldn't have been like that. It's disgraceful. Mr Fennell wrote
to the cabinet secretary, elevated it to the government of India -
this is so serious, that's how high he took it - and said, 'These
venues - you must deploy massive resources, whatever is necessary
to get it right.' And in fairness, you will have seen recent
reports - in the last three or four days, there has been
significant improvements throughout. It should have been done
sooner. It wasn't.
PAUL
Is the Indian prime minister himself on to this?
MICHAEL
Yes, he is. He's certainly called in all his senior ministers, and
he's got a group of ministers that are pursuing everything. And we
are seeing change as a consequence, improvements as a consequence
of that. Doesn't mean we're still not going to have other problems
as we go through these Games, Paul. I think that's inevitable, and
the issue is that the actually have in place mechanisms to address,
in a fast-track way, whenever things do go wobbly. I mean, I can go
back to Atlanta when there were issues with technology, there were
problems with transport. But the key issue now is&
PAUL
And also trouble with a pipe bomb.
MICHAEL
&ensuring they deploy the resources to move forward.
PAUL
1.7 million tickets are available for these Commonwealth Games. 1.7
million. How many have been sold, Mike?
MICHAEL
I have absolutely no idea. My focus has been on operational
matters.
PAUL
Why don't you know this? You are the chief executive of the
Commonwealth Games Federation. Why don't you know this?
MICHAEL
Well, I'm not concerned about& It's not my concern at this
point in time. My concern at this point in time is focusing on what
needs to be done for the athletes, and that's what we're pushing
very hard to get done.
PAUL
What about a ballpark figure about tickets being sold? I don't know
of anybody who says, 'Gosh, I can't wait to go to Delhi to the
Commonwealth Games.'
MICHAEL
Paul, I don't know. I'd be speculating. Clearly, there's been a lot
of negative publicity, and that's as a consequence of raising these
issues. I mean, we've been very upfront about it. Now, that has
deterred a lot of people from coming. The security issues have
deterred a lot of people from coming. Dengue, the massive monsoon,
the floods that have occurred have deterred a lot of people. That's
a shame, but I obviously don't know how many tickets have been
sold, and it isn't really high on my priority list at the moment.
My priority list is making sure that the things that matter for the
athletes - the Games Village - getting that right, the transport
from the Games Village to and from the venues, the sporting
competition, etc. They're the things we've got to focus now and get
right. The rest is nice to have, not necessary to have.
PAUL
It's an unholy mess, isn't it? I mean, you've got to accept it has
been an unholy disorganised mess. It's done incredible damage to
the reputation of India. You have had a difficult relationship with
the head of the Delhi organising committee. It's fair to say, isn't
it, that your head's going to roll, Mr Hooper.
MICHAEL
I don't accept that, Paul. I believe that I have done everything I
possibly can on behalf of the Games movement to get people to
deliver on the promises that they made to the broader Commonwealth,
simple as that.
PAUL
Someone has also said, 'Look, don't worry about India. India is
like this.' I think the expression they use in India is it's going
to be like a monsoon wedding - that everything's chaotic and
suddenly on the last day, on the day of the wedding, on the day
everything's supposed to happen, it will happen. Is that what you
think is going to happen with Delhi?
MICHAEL
I don't ascribe to that. I couldn't believe it when the Minister of
Sport here made that statement some time back. He's made it on
several occasions, and it's very concerning that some people take
that sort of attitude. There is a very good reason the Games are
awarded seven years out, and unfortunately a lot of time was
squandered here. And that's part of the reason the CGF in the end
took a decision to place me here to try and influence. And I'll be
blunt - you think it's bad? To be honest, I think it would have
been worse had I not been here, pushing and challenging the whole
time.
PAUL
Either way, the Games, what, start in about eight days, seven days,
and what do you think of the chances we're going to see brilliant
sport. Are we going to see records? What do you think? Are the
meteorology conditions good?
MICHAEL
Well, I certainly hope so, Paul. I mean, history shows that the
Commonwealth Games has produced a lot of new rising talents. We
have had world records, Commonwealth records, personal records
almost at every single Commonwealth Games. The facilities
themselves are certainly, whilst very late, are starting to look
good. And hopefully, from an operational perspective, everything
runs smoothly. We're certainly working with the international
federations. They're working very very hard under difficult
circumstances to get things done, and I certainly hope we'll see
the sport take over shortly, and then we can all play with
post-mortems later.
PAUL
Thank, Mr Hooper, very much for your time, and all the best for the
Commonwealth Games.
MICHAEL
You're welcome, Paul.