Great sporting nations are built on collaborative efforts

Tokyo has brought us our largest-ever Olympic medal haul, including a coveted individual gold. Yet, we expect more from our athletes. A sign of change that can drive us forward. Our competitor-nations also motor on — finding new ways to spot talent, and innovate on training, analytics and sports science. To move further up the medal table, we will need new approaches.

Historically, our Olympic hopefuls were supported by the government through their federations, under the Annual Competition and Training Calendar (ACTC). Some received direct funding from the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) and state governments. In 2014, the Sports Ministry launched the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), a government-run athlete support programme. Overcoming teething problems in the lead up to Rio 2016, it went through a makeover for Tokyo 2020 and delivered unprecedented support to the preparedness of the Indian contingent.

TOPS is run by a professional team overseen by the Mission Olympic Cell of the Sports Authority of India. Funded through the NSDF, it enables athletes to access world-class training opportunities. It found synergies with the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), the national sports federations and private non-profits that support athletes, such as our team at GoSports Foundation. Monthly stipends were paid to all supported athletes.

Recently, TOPS expanded to support a development pool of 250+ young athletes. Timely interventions ensured continuity of athlete training during the pandemic. These government-driven initiatives are commendable, to say the least. The larger problem, though, is that this approach circumvents rather than addressing the cracks in our sports governance.

Outside those supported by TOPS, life for a young athlete remains challenging. Only a handful of our sports federations are professionally governed. The others face little consequences for lapses.

Regular calendars of competitions give way to annual events, at best. Most do not have dedicated training facilities for their national athletes and teams. Starved of local opportunities, athletes must travel abroad to improve rankings and make progress. Planning, coordination and incentives can make it easier for gifted athletes to be identified and progressed.

Incremental vs abrupt rewards

Career pathways require incremental rewards throughout the athlete’s journey. Instead, central and state governments reserve huge monetary rewards for medal winners. While exceptional athletes deserve every accolade, such a system can skew the balance between process and outcome.

Save for the BCCI, national sports federations survive almost entirely on government funding. The government has not used this reality to refresh, or systematically enforce, the decade-old Sports Code that provides good governance principles and an accountability framework for federations.

The government has gone ahead and built National Centres of Excellence, launched the Khelo India Scheme, under which it hosts the Khelo India Youth Games and Khelo India University Games, set up dozens of Khelo India Centres across the country, and operated National Sports Talent Contests.

We have come to unrealistically expect the government to solve every problem in Indian sport. Infrastructure, talent identification, coaching, events, athlete development. While it is taking this task seriously, it is not sustainable. Great sporting nations are built on collaborative efforts where federations, businesses and social enterprises, including universities, schools, sports academies and sports clubs, play key roles alongside central, state and local governments.

With maturity in the ecosystem, the private sector will want to participate. Private capital will demand accountability from federations and governors. The profit motive comes with its own risks to the sports movement.

Welcoming and moderating private interests is a crucial role for sports governors. Sports federations must claim their autonomous status through good governance and sponsorships and investments will follow. CSR-supported programmes can solve problems that businesses might not. With a focus on scalable pathways of excellence, our athletes’ results will follow.

Moving away from our government-centric mindset and approach won’t be easy. But it is the only sustainable way for a country of our size, with a talent pool we have only scratched the surface of. The globalized world we live in has less information asymmetry and greater opportunities for mobility of people and ideas than ever before. With a collaborative approach involving governments, businesses and civil society, longstanding gaps can be bridged and initiatives scaled in ways that might previously have been impossible. We can get faster, higher, stronger, together.

(Nandan Kamath is a sports lawyer)

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