India, a country of more than one billion population, has achieved limited success at the international sporting arena. The performance of the Indian athletes at the international level is not much convincing. The national sporting federations are often blamed for their ineffective role in creating sporting talents of international repute. Several attempts had been made by the Government to control the activities of the sporting federations in India, but these efforts did not produce any result. Recently, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has made another attempt to incorporate the codes of good governance into the activities of the sports bodies by introducing a sports bill. However, this initiative of the Ministry is strongly criticized by the national sporting federations as this is considered to be the interference of the Government into the affairs of the autonomous sports bodies which is against the Olympic Charter. However, it is important to mention that the sporting federations cannot operate independently, they need the support of the Government for their survival. Therefore, it is important to understand the interdependent nature of these major stakeholders, without which sports cannot be developed in any country.
For the promotion and development of sports in any country, the effective functioning of three sectors is essential. The first one is the Public Sector which includes national, state and local governments and governmental organizations which are responsible for making sports policies, providing funds for building infrastructure, nurturing talents and designing other specialized programmes, such as dope control. The Private Sector includes sports management companies, media providers, sponsors, professional leagues, teams participating in the professional leagues etc. This sector is involved in sports and sports related activities with an objective of making profit. The Non-Profit Sector is the third sector which includes international, national, regional and local sporting bodies which are responsible for regulating and promoting sports, developing sporting talents, organizing competitions, providing opportunities for participation etc.
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These three sectors are not independent, but inter-related. The public sector provides funds and infrastructure to the non-profit sector. The non-profit sector, in return, provides participation opportunities to the society and plays a crucial role in nurturing sporting talents. The private sector utilizes the infrastructure provided by the public sector for organizing the sports events and the other sports related activities. The non-profit sector benefits the private sector by supplying players, coaches, officials and also by providing business opportunities around the leagues and other competitions. The private sector is instrumental in popularizing sports by organizing and broadcasting sporting events, creating hype by undertaking media and marketing initiatives. This sector also provides funds to the government in the form of tax.
From the above discussion, it is obvious that these three sectors are interdependent in nature and each sector is benefited by the other. The benefits can be divided into two types- direct and indirect. The sports bodies, which receive funds from the Government, are benefitted directly. The sports bodies, which do not receive grants from the government, are indirectly benefitted as they use the stadiums and other infrastructural facilities, developed by the Government, to organize sporting activities. Thus, no sports body can claim that they do not take support from the Government and Governmental organizations. But, is there any intention of the Government to interfere in all the activities of the sporting bodies? Is there any system in place to evaluate the performance of the Ministry and the Sports Authority of India? What is the logic to allocate money from the National Sports Development Fund to run an advisory Council? These are the issues which will be addressed in my next article.
Ankan Banerjee
Member of Faculty
Naval Tata Centre of Excellence in Sports Management of
Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, Kolkata
