The sports industry has become richer over years. It should also become more responsible. Not only for the sportspersons who play the game but also for the numerous fans who spend their money on the game. The recent football scandal is a grim reminder
The sight of some of the most powerful figures of the global football industry being hauled away under the cover of silk bedsheets into waiting police vans must have pleased the hearts of football fans all over the world. The irony of the embattled governing body — the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, releasing a self-aggrandising movie at the same time as it faces its worst crisis was lost on nobody. The movie did less than Rs40,000 worth of business.
Of course, there is doubt that the movie would have done better, had Fifa not been caught up in one of the biggest sports corruption scandal of all time. However, that is another story.
In India, many sports fans were flabbergasted with these developments not only because the Americans could deploy their judicial system in a clear extra-territorial application of the law, but also because sports in India is for the most part, riddled with a far worse corruption than in Fifa.
National sports federations in India have been run by vested interests for decades. Rules devised by the International Olympic Committee to prevent politicisation in the sports industry has only led to vested interests and politicians running sports bodies to their ruin for decades.
Powers of the global sports federations have grown with the reach of television. With a multitude of television channels operating today, there are over 20 sports channels that are broadcasted in India, up from just a couple less than a decade ago, even smaller, less popular sports are getting airtime. And national leagues and sports, hitherto confined by geography, now have millions of fans globally.
Just look at the number of youngsters wearing Futbol Club Barcelona and Manchester United jerseys in malls across India. Sports bodies can now, all thanks to the global fanbase, earn several multiples of money they generated a couple of decades ago. And now with the help of online web streaming and social media, money-making opportunities have been increasing day-by-day.
But the globalisation of sport, which has generally seen a positive development, as it has enabled the next superstar to emerge from just about anywhere, has also had some negative aspects.
The first and the foremost negative impact is has had is the amount of money that it has poured into the sports industry — mainly through television and other commercial opportunities. And while earlier sports federation heads peddled in power, the huge amounts of money involved the bill for hosting a global event is in the billions of dollars.
And that is not including the commercial events paid for by the sponsors. Brazil spent billions of dollars on stadiums, and some of those massive, expensive assets are now hardly being used. One stadium, for example, is now being used as a bus station.
Yet, according to the chargesheet released by the US authorities, despite these huge costs in white elephants, countries still jostle to host large sporting events because of that unquantifiable asset ‘prestige’ and were willing to pay bribes to the sports administrators just for that.
This gives us a clear sign that the sports administrators — not just within Fifa, but across the enitre world, have become obsessed with lining their own wallets and are leading lives of unimaginable luxury.
One of the charged officials of Fifa, Chuck Blazer actually kept an expensive apartment in New York’s Manhattan island for the exclusive use of his pet cat. In India, the heads of several federations have rarely played the sports they claim to represent and use the funds from the federations to fund their foreign travel and drive fancy official cars.
Just as sports has become a lot richer over the past decade, it should also become a lot more responsible to those who matter. Not only for the sports persons who play the game but also for the numerous fans who spend their money on the game.
Some might argue that corruption in sports hurts none, but it does. If sports administrators are corrupt how can they effectively tackle other crimes such as match-fixing. Corruption hurts the fans and it hurts the players too, because sports at its essence should be about men and women performing at their very best.
There is no doubt that some national federations have been better than others, India’s dramatic improvement in men’s hockey is in no small part due to the cleaning up of the Hockey federation. It is also clear that this Government does see sports as a way to build national pride and wants to make changes and promote sports in the country.
In other sports like Badminton, spectacular individual talent nurtured by a special coach like Pullela Gopichand has led to an amazing success. But in so many other sports, authorities have encouraged organised cheating. Constant scandals about performance-enhancing drug use keep on coming into the limelight, scandals in Indian weightlifting are a matter of shame, more so because much of the use of drugs happens in junior events.
Just like the attempts made by the American authorities — to finally clean up the global football industry, attempts should be made in India too, to clean-up our national sports federations. The constant crying that India is a single sport country is because the Board of Control for Cricket in India has managed to work for the game.
Of course, cricket in itself stands accused of a lot of wrongs, however, in one aspect, there is no doubt that the BCCI has managed to convert its commercial prowess into a dominant position in the administration of cricket globally. Most other national sports federations in India are just afterthoughts for global sports bodies, and Indian administrators are just courted for their votes.
We need to start removing some of the dead wood in our national federations and replace them with young, dynamic people who can take Indian sport to a higher level. It is still a shame that India — a country of over 1.2 billion human beings comes in the mid-table in the medal tally at the Olympics and the Asian Games.
While it is true that as a relatively poor nation, India needs to invest in programmes that can improve human life, we must continuously improve India’s sporting prowess. Otherwise, the country’s destiny will always be one of a mid-table country — and not just in sports.