A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

Whatever the likes of Suresh Kalmadi and others of his ilk have to say about the transparent manner in which they run the sports federations, we all know why these guys never want to stop their selfless work for the good of sports in this country. It’s the small matter of power, prestige, kickbacks , foreign junkets, nepotism and the opportunity to hog the limelight and the dais if a sportsperson from their sport brings glory to India ( in spite of the federations best efforts to stop him from doing so).

But there is one name whose presence in the lifetime list belies all logic.

Ashoke Ghosh of the Kho Kho federation

Can’t understand what this gentleman has to gain from being the lifetime president of the Kho Kho federation

This sport has no equipment ( all it needs is two small poles). So no opportunity for making money through tenders.

The team doesn’t play in any international tournaments ( unlike Kabbaddi which has international tournaments). So no foreign trips and no felicitation ceremonies.

As for power and nepotism, I don’t think any undeserving kin of politicians, administrators or bureaucrats are trying to join any kho kho teams.

There are no sponsorship or TV deals.

Kho Kho is not even part of the CWG. So they haven’t been given a budget to supposedly improve their players for the 2010 games.

And unlike their counterparts in the boxing federation, the female kho kho players haven’t been used to serve tea or serve some other carnal desires of the federation members. And if they have, then it’s not been considered important enough to be reported by the media. Another reason why it is difficult to understand Mr Ghosh’s unflinching hold on the president’s post.

I am surprised Kalmadi even bothered calling him for the meeting of the federation heads. In fact, the news reports on this meeting are the only results which you get if you Google Ashoke Ghosh and Kho Kho.

Ashoke Ghosh should thank M S Gill that his decision to cap tenures has finally made him Google worthy.

Couldn’t even find what he does when he is not presiding over the Kho Kho federation ( or is he a professional president ?)

Kho means to chase.

I really cant understand what Mr Ghosh is Kho-ing.

The country is counting on you once again

The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) has been worried for a long time the venues will not be completed in time for the 2010 games in Delhi. The organizing committee on the other hand have continued to promise everyone that the nothing of that sort will happen. The media also had chosen to ignore the matter for the longest possible time.

Now things have fallen so much behind schedule that the CGF president wants the prime minister’s intervention to speed up things. That’s just step away from asking for divine intervention.

The Organizing Committee are totally unruffled, however, coming out with yet another statement that Delhi will be ready at any cost.
The ball is now in the prime minister and the sports minister’s court. With the media having suddenly risen to the occasion, the ministers are definitely aware of the gravity of the situation. They can either play the autonomy card a la Mani Shankar Aiyer; claiming that government intervention will be tantamount to a violation of the IOC Charter (which says that sports bodies should be run autonomously) or they can save India from losing face in front of the entire world – something which will seriously dent our chances of hosting any major events in the future.

If no action is taken and the CGF takes the unprecedented step of moving the Games to Australia (which has already been placed on the stand bye) it will be more than the small matter of 12,000 crores going down the drain. These games are meant to showcase what modern India is all about – a country on the rise and on the move. Not being able to put it all together will highlight the exact opposite and jeopardize all our claims to being a new world power.

To the average Indian sports fan, it will hurt as much as the failure to qualify for the men’s hockey event of the last Olympics, if not more. There is so much at stake here.

The sports minister had sacked Indian Hockey Federation chief KPS Gill after the Beijing debacle. But the damage had already been done. So waiting for the present organizing committee to fail will be a calamitous mistake. The minsters need to pre-empt that and take some quick measures.

Disbanding the current one and getting a more professional and capable team will be a good place to start. A leaf can be taken out of the Athens 2004 example, when caught in similar situation, Greece averted a modern day Greek tragedy by getting the best man or shall we say woman to do the job. Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki was brought back to head the organizing committee and she re-energized the preparations ensuring a highly successful hosting of the games.

There is no shortage of capable people in this country who can handle an operation of this magnitude and save India’s blushes. The two ministers just need to put one in charge before its too late.

But do the two of them have the courage to take such a decision. Removing Suresh Kalmadi will not be easy. He is an influential member of parliament who belongs to the same party as the two ministers. It will be a public loss of face for him and he will fight tooth and nail, using all his political clout to scuttle such a move.

Manmohan Singh created a name for himself during the liberalisation process and during the nuclear deal. The fate of another important chapter in the history of modern India is now in his hands. Will he show the same conviction and do the right thing for the country or buckle under political considerations?

The entire country wants to know.

Related Article

What the Indian media isn’t telling you about the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games

Poll – Which sports administrator do you hate most?

Results - KPS Gill – 36%
Can we toss a coin -all of them are equally bad -31%
Suresh Kalmadi -16%

Others who featured in the poll

Priya Ranjan Das Munshi
Sharad Pawar
Jagmohan Dalmiya
Rajeev Shukla
I thought there were no administrators -and things were running on their own
Hey I know someone worse

Others who narrowly missed making the list

Almost everyone who is in charge of running sports in this country.

The State of affairs

I will not bother to get into the details of how sport has been ‘run’ into the ground in this country. A proper analysis will take a book, probably more. We will just mention that ability is not a pre-requisite to become a sports administrator in this country. You need to be an influential politician, businessmen, bureaucrat or a crony of someone influential. In the words of IOA and IAAF president, head of the ad-hoc body of the IHF, Member of Parliament and businessman, Suresh Kalmadi, “it’s imperative that Politicians or industrialists run sports in this country, for only they know how to get more money out of the government”. Golden words indeed. No mention that they are also more capable of diverting this money into their own coffers.

Poll outcome

In light of these facts, it was quite a challenge to pick out a winner from amongst our sports administrators. It was a battle among equals. Things have been bad across the board. And that was well proven by the 31% votes received by ‘Can we toss a coin -all of them are equally bad’.

We had expected that people who run the more popular sports would be at an advantage, their notoriety and ineffectiveness getting more media attention – like the men who have been involved with the cricket board. Also people who have had extremely long tenures – we have a system of getting appointed for a life time in Indian sports – the likes of Priya Ranjan Das Munshi and R.K.Khanna. But surprisingly, this advantage counted for nothing and none of these guys got a significant portion of the votes.

It takes much more than that to separate oneself from the rest of the administrative mediocrity

It takes an extraordinary effort – like ensuring that the sport you rule (that’s the right word) touches its nadir – like hockey did when our men’s team failed to qualify for the Olympics. This led to a national outcry and also the hitherto unseen step of the head of the sports body getting sacked by the sports minister.

I am a proud winner

And that is why KPS Gill – the man who oversaw this great decline – runs away with the poll, getting 36% of the votes. That he is unrepentant and is still making an effort to mobilize the support of the state units to re-capture power makes his case even more convincing.

He is the first among the equals

On a side note, it should be noted that the sports minister at the time of our hockey failure, failed to take any action, referring to the Olympic charter for his impotency. He would have done well in this poll, had he been eligible as the head of a sports body.

Suresh Kalmadi also comes out with flying colours taking a comfortable second behind Gill with 16% of the votes. He takes pride in the fact that he won the Commonwealth Games bid but this event could well become his Waterloo. With the games getting shifted out of Delhi becoming a realistic possibility owing to slack preparation work, Mr Kalmadi could well end up matching KPS Gill in the ‘touching a nadir’ dept. But for now, KPS Gill can bask in the glory all by himself.

This one really has me stumped. We have seen the media in England and Australia wage psychological battles against the visiting cricket teams including ones from India. The Indian media on the other hand pays foreign cricketers to write guest columns – ones which criticize our cricket and berate our players. And sometimes it helps these foreign players promote their books as well. I can understand the rationale of guest articles written by knowledgeable former players but cannot fathom the reason for ones written by the current ones.

Is there such an acute shortage of sports content in this country that we have to rely on these visiting players?

Or, are these newspapers still suffering from the ‘white man’ complex – letting these white cricketers preach us on the game?

As for getting the opposition’s side of the story, we don’t need that. That is all we get when we travel abroad. Is there no cricket patriotism amongst the newspaper people?

And if this wasn’t painful enough, now we have guest columns from our great sports administrators as well. Mr Suresh Kalmadi waxed eloquent on how the Delhi half – marathon was the perfect build-up for the Commonwealth Games. On one hand the media conveniently forgot to report the trouble the 2010 games are facing and on the other hand they give the culprits an opportunity for self –praise.

Don't be surprised if an Indian newspaper publishes a guest column by this guy soon

I wonder what could better this – a guest column from Osama Bin Laden perhaps

Mr Suresh Kalmadi has been elected as the president of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) for the fourth time in a row. This is great news for all Indian sports fans. Mr Kalmadi can now build on all the good work that he and his team have done in the past 12 years and take Indian sport to new highs.

That he was elected unopposed is clearly testimony to the high esteem he is held in – by friends and foes alike. In that sense he is the closest thing that we have had to Mahatma Gandhi – somebody who can cut across party lines and unify everyone under his leadership – and lead the country to glory.

We don’t have to look beyond the 2008 Beijing Olympics to see what Mr Kalmadi is capable of. This was India’s finest moment in the history of the games – all thanks to this great leader’s efforts. In spite of the Mittal Trust’s best efforts to take credit for the success of the Indian athletes, we all know it was Mr Kalmadi who was really responsible for the 3 medals. After all he selected the team for the Olympics and sent them to Beijing. Bad selection policy has been a bane for Indian sport and finally we have someone who has put an end to that.

Suresh Kalamdi deserves a halo over his head

Another reason why Mr Kalmadi faced no competition was because he takes great care of his people. He always makes sure that a large number of sports officials are sent to the international sports events. If he gets to go then his men should also go -Even if the official has no business being at the sports event – Even if sometimes the number of officials becomes more than the number of athletes and coaches – even if a physio has to be sacrificed to make way for an official. For Mr Kalmadi the hard working official always comes first- and hence it’s no surprise that Mr Kalmadi comes first for the officials also.

He has also received little credit for convincing many politicians to take up important positions in the IOA and various other national sports federations. It is thanks to his powers of persuasion that many of these politicians have agreed to take time out from their busy schedules and work for the betterment of Indian sport. Thanks to the wicked media, the common sports fan does not know that getting more politicians on board is a brilliant move on the IOA president’s part. After all it is the politicians who know how to get more money out of the central government. Even the current team is adorned with noted politician- sports administrators like Jagdish Tytler and Abhay Singh Chautala.

Mr Kalmadi is a visionary who always thinks ahead. Although the 2010 Commonwealth Games and 2012 London Olympics are far away, Mr Kalmadi has already started planning for them. The Indian govt has entrusted the IOA president with a large sum of money to bring great success at the Delhi Commonwealth Games. While lesser mortals would be struggling to find a quick fix solution to improve the performance of Indian sportspersons, Mr Kalmadi has again shown his genius. He has gone ahead and asked the Chinese to help India. He is not vain enough to think that this makes India an international laughing stock. He is aware that China has always helped India, as seen during the recent nuclear issue debate. It is a masterstroke on Mr Kalmadi’s part. It’s surprising that nobody thought of this before – we could have become a sports powerhouse long back.

Mr Kalmadi’s dream is to bring the 2020 Olympics to India. It’s a pity that this cannot be achieved in his current term which will end in 2012. Therefore, we should make him president of the IOA till 2020 so that he can make this dream a reality. And thanks to Mr Kalmadi and the help from the Chinese we might just end up on top of the medals tally