Save Indian Sports
This is in reply to Vijay Goel’s tweet seeking constructive criticism and suggestion. I’d limit myself to suggestions, as being a passionate sports follower, I won’t be able to hide my anger or my disgust at how sports in India are managed, if I come down to criticism. I would also encourage readers to put down their suggestions, and of course critique mine, so that at least there’s a conversation. I am no expert but I do have a bit of experience handling local and state governments and I have seen closely the struggle of quite a few sportspersons.
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Sir
You are a doctor and I’d love to see you as the Minister of Health. So maybe, to begin with, have a sportsperson in your position. Yes, I am asking you to resign.
But I don’t think you will. So I indulge in suggestions hoping that you might at least be able to enlist the help of people who actually understand sports. Do note that each of the ideas mentioned below can merit multiple reports and in case you may come to a conclusion that these ideas merit your time, do everyone a favor — do not enlist the help of your bureaucracy. Decentralize the process and only seek the help of ex-sportspersons, hopefully those who have excelled at their sport and not an Atul Wassan or someone.
Suggestions:
1) Create a Ministry of Sports and a Ministry of Youth Affairs and do away with the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. As difficult as it might be for your generation to understand, the youth does much more than just play sports. Similarly, sports are more than just the youth. Both the dimensions need separate and specific attention and hence a different kind of leadership is required for both.
2) Bring in private investment in sports and use the PPP model to institutionalize and promote organizations like Olympic Gold Quest. This can only be possible if the bureaucrats and ministers are willing to give up power and control and hand them over to people who understand sports the best — the sportspersons.
3) Set up district level sports academies to scout talent across tehsils.
a) These academies must scout talent from kids as young as 5 years old and train them.
b) The academies should feed into state level and national level OGQ like organizations.
c) The academies must also have good quality hostels where the kids can spend at a stretch more than a few days.
d) Some of these academies should also be boarding schools.
e) Provide scholarship to students and send the best of them (maybe in Business Class? Read Dipa Karmakar) to international academies for training.
Note: A good example of an academy will be the famed Southampton F.C. Academy. That’s what private investment can do and there is an emerging trend of the same in India. Unfortunately, the focus is on entertainment as opposed to excellence.
4) Ensure that educational institutions are required to channel a certain percentage of their total expenditure on sports development. Set up big prize money for school level and district level competitions so that sportspersons can actually see the benefit of putting in all the hardwork. We lose so many talented individuals to sub-par engineering colleges.
5) Finally, at all levels of such administration (from the district to the national level) engage sportspersons. They should be the one handling all the money and everything else. Do not frustrate them with your bureaucracy. They are sportspersons. They can fight endlessly on the field but don’t make them bang their heads against your wall of bureaucracy. They won’t win that fight. And the entire country will be worse off.
This is just a brief note but I thought your tweet merited more than just a reply on twitter. I know I could have been more detailed — maybe write out a few reports. But my unqualified apology for not having enough time. I’d love to give up more of my time to Indian sports, but even I am scared of your bureaucracy.
