Was Shobha De right?

Her remarks were something like singing “mujhe chhod gaye bawaria…” when barat was just arriving.  Wrong time and probably wrongly worded,  provoking hundreds, including me, to hurl back abuses. But how many players gave a good exhibition of their talents? Coming 54 in 20 mile walk, by no stretch of imagination can be called a good international performance.

How can we overcome this? At present government can do hardly anything to improve the situation. All sports are controlled by sports bodies  ‘elected’  by a rigged system which is helped by total indifference to the sport they control by public. For any failure government blames these bodies and washes its hands. Nobody is bothered. But in the process hundreds of crores of government money is eaten away by these bodies and not by sports persons whom they are expected to serve.

This has been going on for all the 70 years so far. Unless something is done about this, another 70 years will be gone and we shall be waking up after every Olympics  and going back to sleep immediately thereafter.

I suggest following:

District level and State level competitions should be arranged for all sports, something like a statewide sports festival.  Applications should be invited fixing minimum age and other physical qualifications at least six months or even one year before hand. Those who claim to possess such qualifications should be asked to report well in advance and their performance checked. If it is within the limits, they should be invited to the festival.

Officers of our armed forces who train our soldiers should be the judges in the festival. The top 4/6 persons who prove themselves at the festival should go to a national festival once in a year. Those who give top performance there should be sent to sports institutes for further training to match international standards. These institutes will of course be managed not by those selected by politicians, but should either be those who had won laurels when they were young or have been trained abroad in such establishments. No harm in getting even foreigners for managing and coaching.

In annual sports festivals those undergoing training should participate in competition to prove themselves and also set an example for others. Those who are promising should be told at least a couple of years in advance that if they are found to be up to world standard or at least near about, they will be sent to Olympics.

Such candidates should be selected finally at least a year in advance and all of them should train together intensely for a year. We should send ONLY those who are at least up to the best bronze medal standard in the previous Olympics or better. These should be sent to participate in competitions abroad to familiarize themselves with competitions. Unless they go abroad and participate In competitions, the mere awe at the set up will restrict players from giving their best.

Let’s also not forget these players should have some minimum qualifications in other fields also. They should be able to speak English reasonably well. They should know the rules and regulations pretty well to take advantage of it. They should know very well about  the performance of those who are the top sports persons in other countries .

We should invite foreign coaches to give better training to those who had finished their training. We should also invite those who had just retired or available to participate in various sports to our national and statewide competitions to make our own people see for themselves who should be called a real sports person.

Above all it is a must that self confidence of  our players should be developed a whole lot. People should not be chanting their names just after they are already in quarter final! They should be promoted in public by well planned campaigning, fan clubs etc. Unless they become at least local icons how could they ever hope to perform well abroad?

We have seen that a number of our sports persons come from very poor families and can hardly afford full time training, leave alone necessary equipment and even food! Why not encourage our big industrialists to sponsor & finance one sports event and associated players and give them credit for it? For instance can Reliance Runners could be those whose training from beginning to end has been taken care of financially by Reliance Industries?

Financial indiscipline and looting can best be avoided by keeping the accounts of sports bodies fully open at least to players and more frequent audits and publication of consolidated  statements of accounts.

I can go on and on about so many things. But is anyone interested?