Voluntary age rectification scheme ensures fairplay is beginning to be restored

Age-group national tournaments last winter were when matters came to a head. Parents of children playing in the right age bracket were aghast that the menace of age fraud was not only rampant but despite there being measures available to identify the cheats, nothing tangible was being done to stop the continuing fraud. It’s when they wrote a detailed letter to the Badminton Association of India, pleading for urgent measures to be taken. The association took its time, but results are evident now.
Over 100 players – their parents and coaches – have availed of the amnesty scheme window through which players have voluntarily rectified their ages to the correct birth date, without facing punishment. Sanctions will be applicable to those who get caught continuing with age fraud, also facing penal action. But it’s the 100-plus that raises hope of a system clean-up as the amnesty deadlines may be extended in the coming days.

But December had thrown up a startlingly high number: 2192. As per a BAI l of December 2022, a total of 2192 players were playing with delayed birth certificates – where the regration date was 3-8 years after the date of birth. Regered using medical certificates, most claimed they were born at home. Some were later found with two birth certificates. These were pointers to age fudging and manipulation.
Tallying class of studying with age was a basic filter, for there would be curious questions of a player studying in Class 1 at age 2 or 3, or there was this other case of a player with fraud documents that pointed to them never having gone to school till Class 7. RTI enquiries exposed hundreds of such eye-popping occurrences all done to cheat at badminton. Some were even born in auto rickshaws, just so that the real hospital notifying dates didn’t need to be revealed.
Beyond the unfair physical advantages was the ethical rot in the system, where parents and coaches actively partook in if not merely encouraged cheating. Most found shifting to the senior Open categories too daunting, and even those that succeeded left a bad whiff of an example.

The voluntary rectification is the first serious attempt from the association, and gives age cheats a chance to course correct at a time when the penal punishment will far outweigh the benefits of cheating.
Age fraud also exposes India’s unhealthy obsession with the prodigy, be it in academics or in sport (which was why chess was forced to act sooner than anyone), wherein junior successes get inflated importance in the hope of similar success in seniors. Junior success is viewed as definitive when time after time it has been proven that not even 50 per cent of it translates when thrown into the seniors pool.
It was the ultimate success of relentless, untiring parents of those that did not cheat. They would routinely expose the dual dates, highlighting the anomalies through publicly available and procurable documents. They would devise a checkl of documents against which ages could be verified. This was something successfully employed the chess federation, in a sport that was teeming with age fraud menace only a decade ago. That it needed parents to undertake detective work instead of focussing on their ward’s badminton however was damning. It exposed a governance malfunction that has gone on for too long in Indian sport.

It is not just the physical parameters like power and strength where even a two-year difference can make an enormous impact. It is also the psychological and emotional maturity that counts on a badminton court. This move will have its most lasting effect on the u13, u15 and u17 age categories where growth spurts play a role. It will ensure one gets an accurate assessment of where Indians really stand at the junior international level. Transitioning to seniors is challenging enough without having to additionally battle age cheats and get demoralised losses to opponents who clearly hold an unfair advantage.
Until recently, losses would mean losing out on the plethora of opportunities – beyond selection for international meets. There was the early employment PSUs, selections to bigger academies, and sponsorships that would be determined these wins and losses. Careers got defined junior milestones unnecessarily. The voluntary age rectification scheme ensures fairplay is beginning to be restored.