India's Sports Federations Need Urgent Reform

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Back in 2019, Indian archers won a gold, two silvers and four bronze medals at the Bangkok Asian Games – but those medals do not figure in India's tally. That year, World Archery, the sport's global governing body, had suspended the Archery Association of India after two rival groups held parallel elections to the AAFI's governing body.

In August 2022 the Federation International de Football Association (FIFA) briefly banned the All India Football Federation citing "third-party influence". (The complex history of the AIFF ban is detailed in this piece I had written for The Morning Context back then, and Sportstar has a timeline of events that sheds more light.)

In August 2023 United World Wrestling, the sport's apex body, suspended the Wrestling Federation of India for failure to hold elections within the prescribed deadline. The Ministry for Sports and Youth Affairs had earlier dismissed then WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, who faces charges of sexual harassment and sexual abuse, along with the rest of the governing body. An election was finally held in December but was promptly challenged in court, and the status of the WFI is currently sub judice. Even while the case was in court, the WFI attempted to hold selection trials for the World Wrestling Championships (and for the Under-23 Championships). Wrestlers challenged the trials on the grounds of contempt of court; the WFI promptly withdrew the Indian team from the Worlds, citing interference by the sports ministry.

These are just three examples of many. India has 56 National Sports Federations and over time, almost every major federation has been banned, or involved in some litigation or the other. The history of Indian sport is pockmarked with dozens of instances of malfeasance, often leading to suspensions of the federations concerned. And in each case, the proximate cause has been the same: entrenched vested interests, often politicians or strongmen with political backing, rigging elections to maintain their hold over their respective federations.

Back in 2010, activist sports lawyer Rahul Mehra filed an omnibus case in the Delhi High Court against the functioning of the various National Sports Federations (NSFs) which, he argued, were in blatant violation of the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011. In August 2022, a two-judge bench of the High Court handed down its judgment, the crux of which was that the composition of the governing body of the NSFs had to be radically changed, with eight sportspersons of eminence in each NSF. The court gave the sports ministry and the NSFs 90 days to implement the reforms.

The devil, as always, is in the details. Firstly, sport is a state subject -- and this is crucial when you consider that the sports pyramid is made up of district associations, which come under state associations, which are affiliated to the respective national associations. The high court's jurisdiction is confined to Delhi, and applicable to the NSFs -- but neither the sports ministry nor the NSFs can force the state and district associations to comply with a judgment that does not have the force of national law.

Equally, to the point, India has 787 districts and almost every single district has an association for individual sports -- so that is 787 associations multiplied by the number of sports. These fold into the state associations -- so that is a further 28 states plus eight Union Territories multiplied by the number of sports. Where, in each district and then in each state or UT, are you going to find eight "eminent sports personalities" per discipline to comply with the court mandate?

A classic example is the Indian Olympic Association, presided over by no less than PT Usha, who first put Indian women's athletics on the global map. 

In just the recent past, Usha unilaterally pushed through the appointment of one Raghu Iyer as CEO, leading to protests from the executive council which rejected the appointment and asked for the hiring process to be restarted.

Usha and five members of the IOC executive committee have traded charges of egregious breaches of the Sports Code. Meanwhile, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India has in a report pointed out that the IOA entered into a sponsorship agreement with Reliance Industries Limited wherein "undue favours" were granted to the company. 

The report led to a public spat between Usha and IOA treasurer Sahdev Yadav, with the latter accusing Usha of having pushed the faulty agreement through with minimal or no consultation with the executive committee and Usha, in turn, issuing a show cause notice to Yadav. Fed up with the serial controversies the International Olympic Committee, the apex body, withheld the IOA's share of the Olympic Solidarity grants that are meant to fund development programmes for athletes, and has asked the IOA to resolve its internal differences forthwith. The "or else" is unstated, but clear -- the IOA could face a ban by the global body.

So how is the appointment of an "eminent sports personality" to run a sports body working out?

The administrative infrastructure of sports in India is corrupt to the core -- and sportspersons are very much a part of the system. As they climb the ladder from districts to states to the national level, favours are sought and received, there is give and take between sportspersons and administrators, and the Hotel California syndrome kicks in -- you can't, when it suits you, check out and don a crusading hat.

The sports ministry, and various stakeholders, have been aware of the issue; an attempt was made to redress it with a draft code, circa 2017, that looked to shift the focus from the development of sport to good governance of sporting bodies. Political pressures ensured that the draft bill died stillborn.

It is in this context that the government has now come up with the draft National Sports Governance Bill 2024 (PDF here), aimed at moving away from previous development-focused bills and establishing a robust regulatory framework for Indian sports. The draft bill, in its intent, seeks to ensure better management of NSFs, incorporates significant changes in eligibility of candidates for election to an NSF, and attempts to regulate the governance of sports federations and ensure accountability through an internal dispute resolution system -- which seeks to circumvent growing judicial activism in governance issues.

Key features of the draft bill include the establishment of an independent Sports Regulatory Body that will among other things manage the recognition and de-recognition of NSFs, the spelling out of clear criteria for NSFs including constitutional requirements, inclusivity in elections to NSFs via a clause that any Indian citizen over 25 years of age can contest elections to sports bodies (as opposed to the current system, where you have to be a member of the concerned NSF to contest elections), the creation of a Sports Election Panel which will ensure that experienced electoral officials oversee elections to the NSFs, and the formation of an athletes' commissions to ensure that athletes have an officially recognised voice in governance, and the creation of appellate sports tribunals to handle disputes.

If and when this bill, in whatever final form, becomes law, it will solve for several problems -- not least, judicial intervention and the mandate by apex sports bodies that NSFs should be autonomous and free of governmental control and interference.

Hold off on the toast to the dawn of a new era in sports administration, though. The bill is still in a nascent stage; it was opened for public comments with a cutoff date of 25 October. It will have to go through various consultative processes involving multiple drafts and re-drafts, and it then has to pass through the parliamentary process -- assuming it is not torpedoed by vested political interests -- before the bill, in final form, acquires the force of law.

Assuming it jumps through all those hoops the devil, as before, lies in the procedural details. For instance, it is one thing to state that the regulatory body will be "independent" -- but given that the members of the body will be appointed by the government, what price independence?

Or take the clause that permits any Indian citizen to stand for election to an NSF. If you are reading this, if you are interested in sport and vested in ensuring that Indian sport is well governed, you can put your hat in the electoral ring -- but how can you ensure that your chances are as good as those of another candidate with the backing of politicians and/or business interests? (Theoretically, you as Jane or Joe Citizen can contest elections to Parliament too -- but would you, and if you did, do you stand the chance of the proverbial snowball in hell? Same difference here.)

Again, the bill provides for elections to be overseen by experienced electoral officers. But elections to Parliament and to state assembles are overseen by an Election Commission comprised of experienced electoral officials -- but look at the serial controversies surrounding recent polls. Experience, clearly, is not synonymous with integrity.

The draft bill is well-intentioned, but you know what they say about the paving stones of the road to hell. In its current form, it is just a scaffold in the making -- the superstructure remains to be built, the various wrinkles need to be ironed out, and all of this will take a generation or more. Don't hold your breath waiting for the promised dawn.

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