The Good and Bad of the National Sports Bill

Ajay Maken's pet bill can change many things in Indian sports

Ajay Maken who is currently managing the youth affairs and sports ministry in the central govt. took a bold step by bringing a controversial bill called ‘National Sports (Development) Bill 2011′ to ‘imbibe the practice of good governance’ in Indian sports organisations. It was certainly a bold step by a novice minister as the fate of the contentious bill was known even before it was put in front of the cabinet for approval; the cabinet which includes powerful ministers who are actively involved with many sports bodies. So a bill that will apparently control and regulate all the sport bodies of India was rejected by the cabinet and Maken was asked to rework the bill. Even the opposition leaders who are office bearers in various sports establishments criticised Maken for intending to place regulations on the working of the sports organisations. While the current form of the bill is definitely too much regulative, it is also the first step in the long debate and systemic reforms that the ailing Indian sports need. Perhaps a revamped and more practical bill can address the problem areas in the Indian sports.

The salient features of the proposed and now rejected bill are given below.

Sports Development Bill 2011

In the preamble section, it tries to clarify one of the biggest doubts raised against the intent of the bill.

...this Bill does not intend to transgress into the independence of the National Sport Federations and the National Olympic Committee. The Bill only seeks to imbibe the practice of good governance accepted around the world in the Indian scenario.

...the Bill seeks to recognize these sports federations as bodies performing public functions. It has also sought to address the issues of sexual harassment, age fraud, impediments to Right to Information, speedy resolution of sport disputes,anti-doping, transparency and good governance.

But will the law really not intrude into the sports bodies’ independence? What good things does the bill bring to the table? Let me present the good and the bad of the bill.

What’s good in the bill?

• The idea of bringing greater transparency is always welcome. And the biggest positive in the bill is that it asks for more transparency. There are many secret actions that sports administrators take that are disadvantageous for the health of the sports in India. Some actions are also taken to help a certain group of people and these actions and the reasons for the action are kept secret. For example, why a particular player is chosen for a particular tournament has to be made public. When Cricket selector Krish Srikant’s son was chosen for India A side despite mediocre performances in the domestic circuit, several questions were raised. But no one answered to the questions that revealed a clear case of nepotism. At the same time, there must be some limits set as I have pointed later.

But the BCCI’s reservation against the RTI clause is nonsensical. BCCI claims that as it doesn’t take any grant from the Govt., it must not come under RTI. It also claims itself to be transparent because it publishes its account details on its website. But transparency is not only about making the financial part public. If the BCCI had been really transparent, then Lalit Modi wouldn’t have been able to commit the IPL scam. The arguments have been brilliantly countered by Sanjay Jha in an article in Tehelka where he writes,

The BCCI’s argument that it does not take financial support from the government, and hence cannot come under the RTI Act was either being clever by half or reflected its poor comprehension of financial accounting. Subsidies are an indirect form of funding; concessionary land, tax exemptions, massive deployment of police forces, import duty waivers all amount to utilisation of public funds and assets. Its studious reluctance to come under RTI only accentuates apprehensions about its myriad ways.

BCCI officials said that they were transparent because their financial performance was on the website! Even the famous Wall Street banks like Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and our own Satyam, DB Realty and Unitech announced “audited figures” with much fanfare, didn’t they?

• Another brilliant addition to the bill is the clause to limit the number of terms for the office bearers. The bill wishes to make it mandatory for the sports federations to have provisions to restrict an office bearers two terms of four years each and also a restriction on consecutive terms.
• The bill also plans to form a body called National Sports Development Council which is to be headed by an Eminent Athlete (a sportsperson who has been conferred with national or international awards). The council will have representation from all facets of sports like members from the National Olympic Committee, Paralympic Committee of India, National Sports Promotion Board, Vice Chancellor of Sports University, sportspeople, sports science specialists, National Anti-Doping Authority, Sports Authority of India, Government representatives, sports law specialists, sports journalists and sport NGO’s. The objective of this council will be, as the name suggests, to develop sports in the country.
• Considering the irregularities in conducting the national games, the bill makes the IOA responsible for conducting the games once in every two years.
• Different clauses of the bill also combat sexual harassment, doping and age fraud etc.
• The bill also moots the idea of a sports ombudsman for resolution of sports disputes.

What’s bad in the bill?

• Even though it denies it, the bill intends to regulate the sports bodies more than it should. Remember, international norms do not encourage government interference in a sports body’s affairs. Some of the impractical and absurd ideas propagated by the bill are deciding a retirement age of 70 for office bearers, reservation for sportsmen in membership and voting power etc. From where was the number 70 reached? Why should the retirement age not be 65 or 75? Are people above the age of 70 years incompetent? In fact, there are many successful persons in different areas who are above 70. Also, having a reservation of 25% of sportsmen in a body managing a particular sport cannot ensure proper management of the sport. It is a popular misconception that sportsmen can lead a sports organisation better than the others. To be frank, there is no guarantee that someone who played the game can also be a good administrator. Look around the world. The best sport bodies in the world don’t have a sportsperson chief. Ensuring the presence of sportsmen in committees within a body that directly deal with the game would have been a good idea.
• The bill can bring bureaucratic control over the sports federations. However shoddily managed the sport organisations be, bureaucratic control is always a high risk idea. Rather than making an external agent control the bodies, internal institutions to self regulate should be encouraged. Autonomy of sports bodies is a must and can’t be tampered with.
• The proposed bill fails to recognise the difference between different sports and institutions managing them. The bill treats every sport equally and puts them under the same set of rules, whereas on the ground all the organisations’ working are not same. For example, the BCCI is professionally run but the same is not the case with the Hockey Federation. BCCI’s problems lie somewhere else. There are also differences between the working of Olympic and non-Olympic sports federations. So there can’t be a generic set of laws that can address all the issues of all Indian sports organisations.
• Another flaw in the bill is to put all the organisations under Right to Information Act without setting up definite limits on what can and can’t be the information that the organisation is bound to make public when asked. Limitless power to public in the form of RTI may put the bodies under unwanted scrutiny which may hinder the performance. Many risky yet productive actions won’t be initiated at all fearing the questions that will be raised in the future.

It is clear that the proposed bill has many loopholes which needs to be corrected before being implemented. Otherwise it may cause more harm than good. At the same time, you have to appreciate the measures initiated by the sports minister to take on the greedy sports administrators who run the game. Hope the minister continues his tirade and come up with a better version next time.