Indian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt got angry over Salman Khan’s appointment as Goodwill Ambassador for Olympics 1
Yogeshwar Dutt

Indian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt expressed his anger on the social media over the IOA’s decision about Salman Khan’s appointment as a goodwill ambassador for Rio Olympics, which will be held on this year.

Yogeshwar Dutt questioned about taking the decision of appointing a non-sportsman as a goodwill ambassador of Indian Olympic contingent while there were many great sportsmen available. On Saturday morning, IOA (Indian Olympic Association) announced the name of Salman Khan as a goodwill ambassador of Indian Olympic contingent.

The London Olympic bronze medalist wrestler expressed his anger on his official Twitter account. At first, he twitted in Hindi, “Ambassador का क्या काम होता है कोई मुझे बता सकता है क्या. क्यूँ पागल बना रहे हो देश कि जनता को (What is the purpose of an ambassador? Stop fooling the people of this country)”

Then he blamed Salman Khan indirectly for using the goodwill ambassador as a promotion of his upcoming Bollywood movie. Yogeshwar Dutt twitted, “Kahi bhi ja Kar apni movie ka promotion kare,Es desh me adhikar hai Lekin Olympic movie promotion ki jagah Nahi (This country gives you right to go and promote your movie anywhere but Olympics is not the place for movie promotion)”

After that, Yogeshwar also twitted, “PT Usha,Milkha Singh jaise bade sports star hai jinhone kathin samay me desh ke liye mehnat ki. Khel ke kshetra me Es ambassador ne Kya kiya (Big sports stars like PT Usha, Milkha Singh worked hard for the country in tough conditions. What has this ambassador done for sport?)”

However, IOA president N Ramachandran said that the Bollywood superstar Salman Khan hasn’t charged a penny. Ramachandran said, “What Yogeshwar said is his personal opinion. From my point of view, it helps a lot in creating awareness not just about the athletes but also about Olympic sports. When he talks about it, millions of people who do not follow sport will also take a note of it.”

It is for the first time that a Bollywood actor will be an ambassador for India at summer Olympic. However, it was not the first time that Salman Khan is named as an ambassador for Indian sports. In 2009, he was named the brand ambassador for Indian football by the AIFF but it (the decision) did not take the sport forward, even one bit.

Salman is hopeful this time as he said, “It depends on both… I feel Olympics doesn’t get the viewership it deserves, which cricket gets, and that’s because we watch it more and other sports don’t get it because we don’t watch them… we are to be blamed.”