The Sorry Mess Of Indian Sports

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Malaise In Indian Sports: Administrative Failures Stifle Athletes And Ambition

Given that the sports media is wallpapered with IPL coverage, you could be forgiven for missing this bombshell report The Indian Express dropped on March 17. 

The key takeaway: there are over 770 sports-related lawsuits making their way through our courts, and that is just in the last decade. Of these, 200-plus cases are tied to governance mess-ups. 

That’s not a headline — it’s a symptom. 

India has of late been dreaming dreams of Olympic glory; its leaders beginning with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah have been talking of hosting Olympics 2036 in Ahmedabad — but India's sports administration is a rancid mess of factionalism, corruption, and inefficiency, some of it directly impacting on any chance India might have of being picked to host the Games. 

The Governance Quagmire

Indian sports bodies are drowning in a swamp of their own making. Take the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI): suspended by the Sports Ministry in 2023 for flouting rules, reinstated in March 2025 after legal ping-pong, yet still struggling to break free of the stranglehold of former WFI president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s continuing clout. 

As recently as January 2025, the WFI admitted, after it was caught out, that it was continuing to operate from Brij Bhushan's home. When questions were asked, the WFI said it would be shifting its office to Connaught Place in February. Here we are in end-March and according to the WFI website, it is now operating out of the home of its president Sanjay Kumar Singh — the same Sanjay Singh who, as a Brij Bhushan crony, had won elections to the WFI in December 2023, and who had then been banned by the sports ministry because, in the ministry's own words, "serious concerns have arisen about the governance and integrity of the WFI."

Who loses? The wrestlers who, as of February, had missed participation in two Ranking Series tournaments already. Participation is vital because points earned in these series determine qualification for world-level events. 

Instead of finding a solution, though, the WFI and the sports ministry are busy blaming each other.

And it is not as if this happened only this year. Indian wrestlers missed global meets in 2023-24 because the WFI’s ad-hoc committee couldn’t sort itself out. That equals lost medals, lost chances. With the WFI now regaining its recognition, it decided to hold trials in the various categories, to which the sports ministry has said all trials have to be videotaped in order to avoid the possibility of athletes approaching courts.

Oh, the pity of it — wrestling tops the list of Indian sports in the number of medals won by our athletes. India's men's wrestlers have won seven Olympic and 14 World medals, while the women have won one Olympic and 10 World medals. It is this highly productive sport that has, for over three years now, been captive to the ambitions of a few, and the incompetence of the ministry that has oversight.

Grok, what does "shambolic" mean? Grok: Haha, check out the WFI.

Or take the Boxing Federation of India, which has oscillated between suspension and court orders over the last 12 months, because the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) can’t seem to get its act together. 

Internal conflicts and legal battles have disrupted the BFI's functioning. The elections scheduled for March 28, 2025, were "paused" due to conflicting court orders from the Delhi and Himachal Pradesh High Courts. These courts intervened after the BFI excluded certain members, like former Sports Minister Anurag Thakur, from the electoral college, citing a controversial March 7 directive that only "duly elected" state unit members could participate. This has led to a standoff between factions, highlighting governance chaos.

Worse, the BFI has suspended its Secretary General, Hemanta Kumar Kalita, and Treasurer Digvijay Singh on March 18, 2025, following an investigation by retired Justice Sudhir Kumar Jain into financial irregularities and mismanagement of funds. Kalita’s subsequent disqualification from contesting the presidency, due to National Sports Code rules on term limits, has intensified the power struggle. 

As is the case with the WFI, the administrative mess in the BFI directly harms the boxers. Assam boxers, including Olympian Lovlina Borgohain, were reportedly blocked from the Women’s National Championships by Kalita’s faction. Meanwhile, stars like Nikhat Zareen and Borgohain have voiced frustration over the lack of a roadmap since the Paris Olympics, with no national camps or international exposure due to the BFI-Indian Olympic Association (IOA) deadlock.

The IOA’s attempt to impose a five-member ad-hoc committee in February 2025 to oversee boxing was stayed by the Delhi High Court on March 4, after the BFI challenged it as “arbitrary.” This tug-of-war has left boxers clueless about whose authority to follow; it has also stalled competitions and selections at all levels.

As The Indian Express report pointed out, these administrative messes roiling various Indian sports bodies extract a price. In 2022 alone, the report said, the All India Football Federation spent Rs 3 crore in legal fees, fighting various court battles. Who loses? In this case, the footballers, because that is Rs 3 crore less that the AIFF can spend on facilities and on training -- and the same is the case with every single sports body that finds itself in the courts, which is basically all of them.

It's not just high-profile sports like wrestling and boxing that are suffering, note. Take yoga. This year, it was elevated as a medal sport at the National Games, and India is pitching for its inclusion in the 2036 Olympics. The problem? There is no officially recognised yoga federation today, with rival factions tying each other up in legal battles that are inching through our courts.

Or take golf. The Indian Olympic Association (of which more anon) unilaterally awarded recognition to one of two factions fighting for control of the Indian Golf Union — an action that no less than the sports ministry has warned will not stand judicial scrutiny.

In all of this, our athletes are roadkill. Middle distance runner PU Chitra won gold in the 1500 metres at the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships in Bhubaneshwar. A week later, she was told that she would not be part of the Indian team for the World Athletics Championships in London. She went to court; the court ruled in her favour, but the International Association of Athletics Federations rejected her bid, and she is still fighting that case in various forums.

If that is the case with elite sport, how about grassroots development? In a word, starving, as federations sink money into lawyers, not talented kids. The talent is there, but the support isn't, because whatever funds aren't misappropriated are going into the bottomless sink of the Indian judicial system.

This sorry mess embarrasses India globally. India is currently bidding to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games — but who among the decision makers will trust this system to deliver?

Olympic dreams meet harsh realities

The Olympic dream is fading, too, because the apex Indian body, the Indian Olympic Association, is a clown car. 

IOA President PT Usha is at odds with much of the Executive Committee (EC). The friction escalated in 2024-2025, with public disputes over decisions like the Boxing Federation of India (BFI) suspension in February 2025, which Usha imposed unilaterally but was later stayed by the Delhi High Court on March 4. It was Usha, again, who controversially pushed through recognition for one faction of the Indian Golf Union, mentioned earlier in this piece. The EC accuses her of autocratic governance, while Usha claims they obstruct progress.

Thanks to this endemic administrative dysfunction, the IOA is struggling with delayed decision-making and poor coordination. For instance, it failed to form a Bid Committee for the 2036 Olympics despite submitting a letter of intent, thus lagging behind international timelines. As a result, the International Olympic Committee has put the blame on the IOA and has frozen all funds to the IOA, and the whole sorry mess casts doubt on the country's 2036 Olympics bid. 

The cutting off of funds hits hard. The IOA is under financial pressure, partly from unpaid loans like the one extended to the Indian Weightlifting Federation to cover a penalty. This, in turn, diverts resources from athlete development to administrative firefighting.

The IOA’s infighting has clearly dented its international standing. This is a red flag for the 2036 Olympic bid, because it is the IOA that must liaise with the IOC -- and clearly, the global body sees the IOA as an unreliable, dysfunctional entity.

Can The Augean Stables Be Cleaned?

Fixing all that is broken isn’t rocket science — what is required is the will. The will, first, to finalise, legalise, and enforce the Sports Code, still in draft form, and give it teeth — independent oversight, not ministry whims. 

The graded funding plan the sports ministry is currently contemplating could work — if it is fair, and fairly administered. 

While the sports ministry sorts out the administrative issues, the Khelo India programme could be ramped up to fast-track sports development. I know that the scheme has been greeted with the kind of skepticism attendant on most of this government's grandiose ideas — but for once, a scheme is showing some signs of traction. 

According to a March 13, 2024, article from The Hindu written by Anurag Thakur, 495 Khelo India athletes won 312 medals across international events in 2022, with a 63% success rate among participants. This includes performances at the Olympics, World Championships, Asian Games, and Commonwealth Games.

At the 31st World University Games (2023), 71 Khelo India athletes secured 14 of India’s 23 medals. 

As far as talent scouting goes, the KIRTI programme, launched in March 2024, assessed 51,000 athletes in its first phase across 28 states by July 2024, with plans for 20 lakh assessments in 2024-25. 

Over 2,800 athletes across 21 disciplines (including para-sports) have been selected as Khelo India Athletes (KIAs) since 2018, receiving Rs 5 lakh annually for eight years.

Does all this translate to success? Not directly, but talent scouting and talent development are mandatory first steps towards sporting excellence, and such systematic efforts have never been undertaken before. 

Success stories include athletes like Mirabai Chanu (weightlifting, Olympic medalist) and Antim Panghal (wrestling, World Championship bronze), who benefited from Khelo India’s infrastructure and support, though some predated the program and were later integrated.

A 2024 study in the International Journal of Research Pedagogy and Technology in Education and Movement Sciences (Vol. 13, No. 03) surveyed 300 Khelo India beneficiaries and found a “significant positive effect” on talent identification. While this supports the programme’s efficacy, it needs mentioning that it is based on a small sample and lacks longitudinal depth.

Not that there aren't limitations — for instance, since the scheme was only launched in 2018, comprehensive, long-term data linking Khelo India scouting directly to Olympic or World Championship medals is still emerging. The programme has only been active for seven years now, and elite success often takes a decade or more. Attribution can also be tricky — many athletes use multiple pathways (e.g., private academies, SAI centers), so their success cannot be entirely, or even directly, attributed to Khelo India.

Critics have also argued that the focus on U-17 athletes in the Khelo India Youth Games misses younger talent (e.g., 5-12 years), a gap KIRTI (ages 9-18) aims to address, but hasn’t fully proven yet.

The point is, Indian sports is a mess — but not an irredeemable one, given the desire to clean up the stables.

But to go back to the beginning: Over 770 lawsuits aren’t a quirk — they are a monumental crisis. 

India’s sports administration is choking its athletes and its future. Want Olympic podiums? Fix the federations, prioritise the players. The clock is ticking.

Additional Reading

• Indian Sports Federations Need Urgent Reform: Playbook, November 22, 2024 (with internal links)

• A Dramatic January, Playbook, January 24, 2025 (Scroll down to the part about the cost of hosting an Olympics)

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