A strong sports policy is needed

Today the entire nation is fighting the battle against corruption. The anti- corruption movement, introduced by Anna Hazare and his team, is aimed at making our social, political and economic systems transparent and accountable by implementing a strong Lokpal Bill. Sport in India is not free from corruption and thus many of us believe that a strong policy, like Lokpal, is required to prevent corruption in sports. Who can deny the massive corruption which took place in CWG 2010 or in IPL? Therefore, an anti- corruption mechanism is required to prevent such corruption in sports. The objective of this article is to discuss few possible features of a policy which can be introduced to make sports in India transparent and accountable.

Features

i) Age and tenure restrictions should be imposed on the office bearers of the sports bodies. It should be regulated that nobody could continue beyond the age of 70. The President and Secretary should not continue for more than 2 tenures of 4 years each.

ii) Paid CEO whose performance should evaluated periodically to ensure transparency and accountability into the system.

iii) Codes of Conduct should be introduced for the members of the Executive Committee/ Board of the sports bodies to prevent issues like ‘Conflict of Interest’.

iv) A system of ‘Social Audit’ should be introduced to evaluate the overall performance of the sports bodies.

v) Independent members should be selected in the Executive Committee/ Board to encourage independent views in the process of decision making. Ex- players, administrators related to other fields, sports management experts should be selected as the Independent Members.

vi) Disclosures on various issues, such as financial issues, Related Party Transactions, should be made in order to enhance transparency into the system.

vii) Whistle- blower policy should be incorporated to encourage employees to fight corruption.

viii) Mandatory long term development plans should be submitted to the Ministry to obtain financial assistance from them.

The Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs of the Government of India has already embodied few of these above features in its recent Sports Policy, but a number of sports bodies have refused to obey the policy as it has been viewed as the interference of the Government into the activities of the autonomous sports bodies. However, the importance of a strong sports policy can never be ignored. It can be expected that the major stakeholders of sports in India will work together to introduce a mechanism to fight against corruption in sports. It should be remembered that nobody has the right to misuse the tax payers’ money and not in the name of sports.

Ankan Banerjee

Member of Faculty

Naval Tata Centre of Excellence in Sports Management of

IISWBM, Kolkata