A Few in a Billion

After the change at the helm of the BCCI there has been a spew of contracts - team sponsorships, kit sponsorships and media rights - that has been sold at very high prices to bidders who wanted to cash in on the craze that is cricket in India. All these sponsorship deals make the BCCI the richest sports body in the world in terms of sponsorship deals raking in a cool profit in excess of Rs. 3300 crores just in profits. Compare to this the Govt. of India's allocation to sports in Budget 2005 - a measly Rs. 320 crores ! Less than one-tenth of what the BCCI alone earns. And still we expect big things come the Olympics.

"How does India compare with Australia?" In India, the media and the public frequently debate this topic. Unfortunately, such discussions seldom go beyond cricket. The discussion goes on for sometime and then we declare that the Aussies are the winners.

In the 2002 Commonwealth Games Indian athletes cam up with no less than 20 Commonwealth records and raked up no less than 52 Gold/Silver medals. But at the 2004 Olympics we managed a lone Silver thanks to Major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore. Comparing India and Australia may not be right thing to do since the Aussies like most European nations and the US are crazy about sports. They enjoy better infrastructure and training facilities than we can ever imagine in India. Looking closer to home, we have Iran and Indonesia. India outsmarted both these nations at the 2002 Busan Asian Games in terms of medals haul. Yet, while we managed only two medals from Sydney and Athens combined, both Iran and Indonesia managed double digit hauls of ten medals each. Where did India's heroes disappear when it came to the biggest stage of world sports ?

One more sport that has really gone down the drain is football. We qualified for the 1950 World Cup, finished 4th at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and won the 1951 and 1962 Asian Games Gold medals. Even in the 1970's India was a football powerhouse in Asia - and believe it or not better than Japan and South Korea. And now we are ranked exactly a hundred places below Japan in the FIFA rankings.

The less said about hockey, the better. Eight Olympic Gold Medals, a host of scoring records that are yet to be eclipsed and a few silver medals are a part of the game's history, and it looks like it is destined to remain just that- history. In a way though the Indian hockey team is consistent, it is always fighting for the bottom places in a tournament. At least they don't flatter to deceive !

So what is the problem with Indian sports ? Is it the over indulgence in cricket, a game played by only eight nations (Bangladesh and Zimbabwe are not worth considerations at this stage)? Well, it could be the case. All major sponsorship deals and media coverage are aimed at cricket. But that shouldn't stop the development of other sports. Media coverage will come with success, after all the media is after news (a debatable issue, deserves a separate blog). The problem lies elsewhere.

Rarely will you ever find a sports body in India that is headed by a person who has had represented the country in that sport (I personally don't know of one). Its invariably a politician, a bureaucrat or in some cases businessmen who make the running of a sport their personal fiefdom. They run the bodies as they like looking into their personal benefits rather than the benefit of the sport. But then in India there is no room for idealism, it is always the interest of the self before the interest of the masses. No wonder then that India is represented by more officials looking for a foreign holiday than sportsmen/women at international sports meets. The officials decide where to stay without consideration of the distance from the venues. And then the coaches back home expect gifts for their wives when an athlete returns from an international event. If you don't get anything for your coach's wife, you might as well consider your international career over unless you are gifted with natural talent.

The situation is worse in case of national meets. The athletes are crammed into hostel rooms unfit for even college students, served food that would put the prison kitchens to shame and given an allowance of Rs. 50 per day for daily expenses !

I really have no idea how to ameliorate the situation. May be the system need to be revamped to change the people heading the sports associations and woo sponsors to pour money into sports other than cricket. The Government should also allocate more money for the development of sports in the country but there must be a watchdog in place to make sure that the money does not make its way to the pockets of the politicians and bureaucrats heading the sports bodies.

We keep talking of the rot in the political and judicial systems in India, but we forget the state of sports in this country of more than a billion. Unless we change it we will have to keep basking in reflected glory of our past achievements or revel in the achievements of a few in a billion.