DH Exclusive: Indian Army sports team members told to be soldiers not athletes

The Agnipath scheme will not affect athletes recruited before September 2022, but they will be removed from their teams should they fail during trials

Sports teams in regiments affiliated to the armed forces across the country appear to be culled to ‘optimise manpower’.

This, sources claim, is an indirect fallout of the introduction of the Agnipath scheme where only up to 25 per cent of recruits are retained after a four-year contract, which could result in manpower shortage.

“Almost all sports teams from regiments will be disbanded because of the shortage of personnel,” said a player, who recently received orders from his higher-ups to pay more attention to “being a soldier rather than an athlete”.

“We have been informed that only Army Red (one major team per sport at the central level) will get preference. Even the Army Green (second-tier team) team is likely to be disbanded. That means teams in regiments like MEG, ASC, CMP will be disbanded because -- at least this is what we have been told -- a lot of energy and manpower is being wasted on athletes at these centres.”

A couple of defence public relations officers (PROs) that DH contacted chose to remain silent on the issue.

The Agnipath Scheme was introduced in September 2022 for recruitment below the rank of commissioned officers. Recruits will be on contract for a period of four years, and extensions will only be given to up to 25 per cent of recruits who are exceptional during their stint.

The same principles are likely to be used to grade new athletes entering the force. The scheme will not affect athletes recruited before September 2022, but they will be removed from their teams should they fail during trials.

Read | Agnipath transformative policy, game changer in making armed forces future-ready: PM Modi

This effectively means that those recruited on sports quota must perform the role of a soldier should they come up short in trials while the new recruits under the Agnipath Scheme, who excel as both soldiers and athletes, will be inducted into the Army Red team.

“You have to be very good as an athlete and as a soldier and only then will you get to continue to play for the main army team,” says a Physical Training Officer on condition of anonymity.

“The athletes who are already recruited will have to stop playing as much because there is other work to be done, and also they have to fight for their spots in the main army team.

“In the past, we had so many teams, it was easy to continue this life of a soldier-athlete, now you cannot get complacent,” he adds.

In essence, the Army Sports Control Board (ASCB) will conduct annual trials to separate the ‘wheat from the chaff’, and keep the Army Red flush with the best talent while the rest focus on their day-to-day duties as soldiers. The new recruits -- Agniveers -- will get a four-year term to prove themselves, and should they fail to fall inside the ‘up to 25 per cent’ grade as a soldier and an athlete they will lose their role in the Army.

That said, even Army Red players will only take part in tournaments across the country should they have the time. I don’t think we will play nearly as many tournaments as we used to before,” said another player. “We won’t have some of the privileges we used to have, but that doesn’t matter. We are here to be soldiers first, we can be athletes later.”

The player also revealed that the recruitment process will change over the course of the next few years with an emphasis on picking quality talent instead of spending time grooming youngsters.

“Given how short these contracts are, we can’t groom international quality players,” a coach from Pune confirmed the player’s revelation. “Our focus is to now pick national-level athletes and hope for success in that short term. In a way, it’s quality over quantity.”

One of the reasons, the source claims, for this disbanding of teams is because regiments had too many recruits whose primary role had become sports. “… but that’s not the only reason the forces hired them,” he says.

The army adopted a similar stance in the late 1970s where competitions were restricted to the unit level and only trials were conducted. The move raised eyebrows, but more importantly, interest in sports and the quality of athletes in the forces dwindled by the early 2000s.

To buck the trend, the Army incepted Army Sports Institute and resuscitated the Boys Sports Company Scheme -- both under ‘Mission Olympics’ -- in 2001, starting with a budget of Rs 60 crore. Since then, athletes from the armed forces have become household names in India with a whole host of them winning at the Olympic level, the latest being Neeraj Chopra.