1. The document discusses issues with sports administration and governance in India, focusing on a lack of transparency and accountability in organizations like the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and various national sports federations. 2. It notes that the IOA and other groups have opaque finances, self-perpetuating leadership composed mainly of politicians and businessmen rather than sports experts, and provide patronage that benefits associated individuals and organizations more than athletes or sports development. 3. Indian sports performance has remained relatively poor given the country's large population, suggesting that current systems are not effectively identifying and supporting athletic talent or ensuring accountability and proper use of funds.

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The Politics and Economics of Sports Administration in India
Shantanu Basu
In the last few weeks in The Statesman, I addressed three parallel centre of governance in India, viz.
culture, caste-based reservations and giveaways of government lands. I now turn my attention to yet
another such centre, viz. sports administration.
The Indian Olympic Association’s (IOA) web site lists 34 state/UT Olympic associations and 39
national sports associations. Even UTs like Diu & Daman and Chandigarh have a ‘state’ Olympics
association to enlarge IOA’s Electoral College. Likewise, the range of games is bewildering and
includes luge, ice skating, ice hockey, wushu, taekwondo, rugby, netball and handball, virtually
unheard in India. What is even more interesting is that the IOA web site still shows the last audited
accounts as having been prepared for 2009-10, i.e. five years in arrears. The 2008-09 accounts of the
IOA show that it received Rs. 2.80 crore as grants received from diverse sources pending utilization,
yet there is nothing in the public domain to show that utilization finally happened and whose bona
fides were certified by an external agency. Surprisingly, within a year, i.e. from 2007-08 to 2008-09
investments made by IOA rose from Rs. 23.70 lakh to Rs. 6.60 crore.
Affluence of IOA showed up in Rs. 7.04 lakh ‘entry fees’ to the Beijing Olympics. What were these
fees paid for? Likewise, IOA was rich enough to provide Rs. 22.17 lakh for CWG, Melbourne for
MoYAS & DDA officials and IOA office bearers to stay put in Melbourne for 2-3 weeks, many with
their spouses. There are also intriguing items like “Raffles Square Development (P) Ltd.” for Rs.
9.78 lakh, a real estate development in Candolim, Goa. Neither is any information on utilization of
grants-in-aid received from MOYAS of Rs. 3.47 crore in 2007-08 and from International Olympic
Committee (IOC) of Rs. 1.60 crore nor Rs. 60.43 lakh for hockey available in the public domain.
The web site neither provides the list of previous Governors/Directors of the Board of
Management/Executive Council nor the current list of office bearers with their dates of election and
re-election, sporting achievements, etc., least of all the grants-in-aid it receives from MoYAS. What
is equally interesting is that most affiliated associations operate out of official residences of Members
of Parliament and private residences of their principal officers/members, many of whom are
legislators and prominent businessmen. Google searches made on each principal officer and his/her
deputy never seem to throw up their sporting achievements for the associations they head. It is
therefore not surprising that Chef de Missions and their deputies at successive Olympic and other
international Games have had little to do with sports.
Notwithstanding an elaborate nationwide network, India’s achievements admitted by IOA are a gold
medal each at the Olympics in 1928, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1964, 1980, two silver medals in
1900, 1960, 2004 and two in 2012, and a bronze in 1952, 1968, 1972, 1996, 2000, 2008 and four in
2012, i.e. a total of 8 gold, 6 silver and 10 bronze – 24 medals in a span of 115 years, an average of
an Olympic medal every five years for a sixth of the world’s population! India’s performance in
successive Commonwealth Games from 1970-2014 (except 1986 for which data is not available)
netted it 422 medals of 6848 that were available. Of those India won, 151 were gold (7%), 148 silver
(7%) and 123 bronze (5%), effectively making for an average tally of a minuscule 6.5% of all medals
awarded. This is when India is the Commonwealth’s most populous and second largest (by area)
member.
Even at the Guangzhou Asian Games (2010) where international competition excludes western
nations, India came in a lowly sixth with Kazakhstan at fourth and Taiwan at fifth spot. In Incheon in
2014, India and Iran ranked fifth with Kazakhstan at fourth and Taiwan at seventh place. Here too

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India was the second largest participant after China. MoYSA’s Annual Report for 2014-15 admits
that at the Para-Asian Games in 2014 in Incheon, India ranked a lowly 15th in the medals tally; the
Report ascribes no rank at several other international games during 2014-15, probably because it
would be embarrassing. The single biggest face-savers for Indian sports have been the akharas and
mostly private and departmental efforts of India’s archers, shuttlers, wrestlers, weightlifters, boxers
and sharpshooters.
Now let us take an affiliate federation, viz. Hockey India (HI). Like IOA, HI boasts of an
octogenarian politician – a former Speaker of a State Assembly and State Minister – as its Life
President. Inter-federation transfers are apparent as the current President of HI was also Treasurer of
DDCA at one time apart from being the long-serving Secretary of HI before his elevation as
President. HI has 20 member states affiliated to it. There is another category of associate members
that makes for interesting reading. Dadra & Nagar Haveli Hockey Association, Hockey Gangpur –
Odisha (apart from Hockey Odisha as member), The Mumbai Hockey Association Ltd. and Vidarbha
Hockey Association (apart from Hockey Maharashtra as member), Hockey Patiala (apart from
Hockey Chandigarh and Punjab as members with Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal heading the Punjab unit),
Hockey A&N Islands, Coorg (apart from Hockey Karnataka as member) and Telangana Hockey
(apart from Hockey AP as member). Unlike DDCA, HI is registered under the Societies Act that
brings it fully within the jurisdiction of GNCTD. What is intriguing is that the current President was
the Treasurer of HI at least till May 2015 when the Memorandum & Articles of Association of HI
were updated. These Articles also show that of seven Governing Body members, four were
businessmen and an MLA, ‘Consultant’ and Service were the rest. Needless to add, the CVs of none
of these office bearers is available on HI’s official web site. Art. 2.1.1.3 of MAA states that of the
seven Governing Body members, three shall be Life Members; however, no criterion for their
nomination is given. Nor is there any mention of the qualifications or mode of appointment/election
of the office bearers who are members of HI.
Art. 4.4 give a maximum of 12 years tenure to HI’s President who can be re-elected after an
intervening gap of a four-year term. Similar provisions apply to the Secretary General and Treasurer,
all subject to an age ceiling of 70 years. However, there is no bar on rotating between Secretary
General, Treasurer and Treasurer during the cooling-off period. What is even more interesting is that
HI’s President is vested with the authority to nominate 5 Associate Vice Presidents and Associate
Joint Secretaries each. Although such nominations are to be ratified by HI’s Executive Board, yet
such nominees are also invitees to this Board.
Pertinently, MAA of HI declares it’s President the constitutional and executive head of HI and
charged with the duty of enforcing financial discipline and that no unauthorized expenditure is
incurred. Full financial powers to sanction limitless expenditure are vested in HI’s President. How
can the President of DDCA be exempt from similar rights and obligations when all
associations/federations have an almost identical organizational structure? Not just that, the Secretary
General is also authorized a CEO who enjoys the same powers as the Secretary General and works
“under the guidance and control of the Secretary General” – presumably as a guinea pig. Did DDCA
also have similar arrangements? And did this absolve the President and Secretary General of their
stated obligations?
HI’s accounts for 2013-14 and 2014-15 present interesting results. Its reserves and surpluses rose by
51% and its total sources of funds by 25% in 2014-15 over 2013-14. These resulted in an accretion
of 23% to HI’s cash and bank balances, including rise of 19% in fixed deposit investments and near
doubling of bank balances. GoI grants to HI also rose by 25% while franchisee, broadcasting and
sponsorship income rose by 26% although ticket collections were a very modest Rs. 48 lakh. On the
expenditure side, what is intriguing are hefty amounts of Rs. 1.89 crore paid toward legal fees and
Rs. 5.76 crore toward payment of ‘commissions’. To whom and why were such large amounts paid?

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How was sponsorship, etc. rights awarded? Has HI submitted utilization certificates to the grant
giving GoI agencies? Have the agencies caused any in situ verification of such certificates before
subsequently releasing enhanced grants-in-aid? Yet HI’s internal rules and regulations are quite
detailed and available in the public domain. Then why are not those of DDCA?
Let us now see how the All India Football Federation (AIFF) scores. Its 33 members do not suffer
the infirmities of HI’s. However, its audit report for 2013-14 is disturbing. AIFF’s auditors
questioned photocopied bills submitted by state associations for Rs. 2.09 crore, without any
supporting documents, Rs. 93 lakh and cash payments of about Rs. 17 lakh. The same auditors had
previously pointed out identical irregularities aggregating Rs. 11.16 crore in 2006-13. State
associations too are not above board. The auditors said that the West Bengal Sports Association that
had received Rs. 50 lakh in 2009 had no covering documentation produced for the audit. Did this
state association receive the grant at all? Likewise, Rs. 50.57 lakh received by AIFF from a foreign
private broadcaster met the same fate. The Indian Football Association that had received aggregate
Rs. 1.67 crore loans from AIFF claimed that their records were destroyed in a fire! The magnitude of
patronage inherent in such federations is evident from the fact that AIFF garnered, from 2010-11 to
2013-14, garnered about Rs. 132.75 crore from sponsorship, broadcasting, etc. and Rs. 14.33 crore
from grants-in-aid from GoI and its agencies.
AIFF doled out close to Rs. 31 crore for I-League and U-20 sponsorship plus Rs. 5 lakh each to I-
League clubs and about Rs. 70 crore for the Indian Arrows, all in just two fiscals ending 2013-14.
Add the largesse it provides to state associations, host of clubs, domestic tournaments, referees,
umpires, budding footballers, etc. and the picture that emerges is of a galloping commercial
enterprise with immense financial clout and concomitant patronage that has a former Union Civil
Aviation Minister for its current President. Like all other federations, AIFF too does not disclose the
qualifications and sporting experience of its Governing Body members. Similarly, the Badminton
Association of India has a Rajya Sabha MP for its President whom the Sabha’s web site describes as
an “educationist, professor, business, industrialist, publisher and builder – quite a spectrum! An
octogenarian ex-BJP MP heads the newly constituted Advisory Council on Sports in MoYAS.
What does the preceding discussion mean for the Indian aam aadmi? First, that sports and business
make the nations’ most lucrative business proposition, after real estate and sale of armaments,
psychotropic substances and illicit bootlegging. That is why India has politicians, civil servants and
businessmen that often have little to do with a sport, rule the roost in nearly all sport
federations/associations. Second, registered as societies and Sec. 8 (Companies Act, 2013) non-profit
companies, these bodies ‘elect’ the core that sets up these bodies and circulates between critical posts
while keeping alive the fiction of separated tenures. Senior politicians, prominent businessmen and
civil servants constitute the cabal of parallel governance away from the public eye. That is why it is
convenient not to carry the CVs of office bearers and past members on official web sites, their
portfolios over decades, etc. Third, this core determines the Memorandum and Articles of
Association (MAA) that not only ensures rotation of the core between posts but also creates a
periphery, comprising of official nominees whose state-level nominations are shrouded. This
periphery that owes its nomination to these national federations is but only a façade that supports the
core in exchange for patronage, in cash and kind for their kith and kin and favourites, be they
coaches, budding players, linemen, pitch/field layers, menial O&M personnel, state level wannabe
association members, lawyers, auditors, event managers, ad agencies, equipment suppliers and O&M
contractors, and many more.
Fourth, the core determines all critical decisions relating to finances, sponsorship, foreign trips,
protocol expenses, publicity, legal and audit retainers, myriad more. It even appoints a well-
recompensed scapegoat CEO for a failure-blame buffer. Fifth, commissions are regularly exchanged
with sponsors whose selection cannot be verified for fairness. Sixth, ticket collections often do not

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justify the huge sponsorship that these federations receive. Is there a money laundering angle to such
sponsorships? Seventh, grants-in-aid from the GoI are but a fraction of the annual budgets of these
federations. Yet, Ministers and legislators with their favoured civil servants do not shy away from
critical office bearers often to the point where court intervention forces an overdue professional
demise. With such minuscule GoI grants-in-aid why are these federations such fertile hunting
grounds for the influential core?
Eighth, how are auditors and legal advisers of these entities appointed to receive handsome
recompense? Ninth, what is the measure of control of the federations by state and GoI’s agencies
such the Registrar of Cooperative Societies or companies and have any reports on their activities
been published and placed in the public domain? This is when several federations run sports facilities
on prime leased GoI real estate in Delhi and elsewhere. If this substantial gratis support does not
entitle GoI and GNCTD the right to monitor these bodies, what does? Last, but not the least, what is
the role of MoYAS and States in regulating these federations to ensure that India’s sporting
performance, particularly overseas, rises above ground level? Aren’t all these issues equally germane
to the DDCA and therefore worthy of independent external investigation? Opacity of disclosure of
patronage is the life-giving virtue of these federations and associations; in transparency and public
scrutiny lie their vice and eventual demise.
At the apex of this vast pyramid of patronage is India’s gargantuan MoYAS. The Ministry’s
Outcome Budget for 2014-15 shows that MoYAS boasts of a State Minister, two Secretaries, six
Joint Secretaries and 21 under/Dy. Secretary/Directors. In 2014-15, of its final budget allocation of
Rs. 1768.40 crore, MoYAS returned Rs. 624 crore as unspent balance, i.e. close to a third. Of these
surrenders, Rs.300 crore was owed to creation of a sports university in NE India and Rs. 200 crore
for enhancement of sports facilities in J&K. The sheer ineptitude of MoYAS in obtaining approval
for National Sports Talent Search System Programme caused an additional surrender of Rs. 50 crore.
Likewise, Rs. 53 crore for Sports Authority of India (SAI), Rs. 20 crore for LNIPE and Rs. 114 crore
for Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan, many more. This was when the then Minister of MoYAS was a BJP
MP from Assam. Staffed by babus with no more skill than playing games of one-upmanship amongst
themselves and deciding on the viability of sports tournaments on the one hand, and patronage-
seeking national sports federations & associations on the other, caused Rs. 21.53 crore for organizing
games in states to be surrendered. Similarly, Rs. 15.97 crore for sports and games in tribal areas
remained unutilized as MoYAS was unable to obtain utilization certificates for previous grants
released to state implementing agencies. Not surprisingly, MoYAS exceeded its secretariat budget
allocation by Rs. 9.28 crore for itself.
The biggest service delivery agency of MoYAS is the SAI. SAI is tasked with promoting broad-base
sports, identify/ scout sports talent and nurture it and implement schemes/ programmes for achieving
excellence in sports in different disciplines at international level in order to establish India as a major
sporting power. SAI also manages the Ninth Asian Games (1982) stadia in Delhi. For the first three
functions, SAI has to depend on the services of local and state sports associations. While its own
centres like LNICPE and NIS are well-organized, yet there have been scores of complaints of sexual
harassment, poor amenities at sport tourneys, nepotism in selection of national teams, and much
more. The SAI has an impressive list of schemes to incentivize budding sportspersons, yet its efforts
are very thinly spread, financially and physically and almost entirely reliant on mostly falsified
utilization certificates.
States run schemes and institutions, often have little or synergy with the SAI’s institutions. When
sports is listed at s. no. 33 of the State List in the Seventh Schedule of our Constitution, why should
there be anything more than a coordinating SAI in Delhi as part of the Ministry of Social Welfare or
HRD that would obviate the need for an expensive and expansive Dept. of Sports under MoYAS?
Why are SAI’s campuses and centres not transferred to states where these are presently located?

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Further, sports budget allocations also form part of several other plan schemes operated, inter alia,
by Ministries of Rural Development, Home and DONER that can easily be transferred directly to
states for implementation. Maintenance and upkeep of the white elephant Asian Games stadia in
Delhi can easily be undertaken by the CPWD with a captive budget allocation under Ministry of
Urban Development. Then why have the Dept. of Sports any longer?
This is where the rub lies. MoYAS is the unified point of convergence for all national sports
federations and associations, the meeting point of politics, bureaucracy and business. MoYAS is also
the conduit to other Ministries of GoI that dole out largesse for promotion of sports. In the SAI,
MoYAS has huge infrastructure that is mostly averagely maintained and is a source of patronage and
major rent-seeking in their O&M operations. Identification of budding sportspersons reportedly reeks
of nepotism and it is not unusual to find kids of prominent businessmen, moneyed professionals and
Raisina Hill mandarins cornering the relatively attractive benefits doled out by SAI, including
selection of national teams for overseas tournaments, innumerable extended foreign trips by MoYAS
bureaucrats, sometimes with spouse, in the company of well-heeled sports federation office bearers.
Since SAI’s control over most other financial incentives for sportspersons is limited to mostly
falsified utilization certificates, funds for scholarships, prizes, etc. are always available to local
worthies to distribute at their discretion without any interference from other state level worthies. An
overaged sportsperson is an asset for his sponsors. A successful ineligible sponsorship, based on a
bogus birth certificate, immediately creates huge rent-seeking opportunity and expands the available
pool of future contestants to add to the kitty. Prizes and grants-in-aid are also often shared between
local worthies and sporting participants, sometimes under duress or simply in expectation of
selection fortune being showered upon them, sometimes even by non-existent participants. It is
equally probable that building and O&M contracts and supply of equipment for SAI’s campuses and
centres along with sports facilities created by states are mostly captured by front-end contractors of
powerful office bearers of state federations and associations who also have inroads into state
governments. When pressured for utilization certificates, grantee institutions simply manufacture
most of them overnight to become eligible for further largesse from GoI since ground verification
could be fatal for an inspecting officer.
Add to the above illustrations, are recurring multi-crore benefits from commercial exploitation of
land leased from governments such as by running bars, shops, clubs, spas, sporting equipment shops,
etc. ostensibly for members and their cabals. The media naturally finds a strategic space in these
cabals’ dispensing of patronage by way of large commissions on ad spending, sponsorship, selling of
corporate boxes, etc. Given their immense political clout, politicians, cutting across parties and top
bureaucrats are their natural and willing targets to fill the topmost slots in sports federations and
associations. It is for this reason that the Registrar of Societies or Companies magically turn blind to
the misdeeds of these federations and associations, even when their accounts are entirely dubious or
when they incorporate these bodies and submit self-serving M&A of Association. These agencies do
not even investigate huge differences in sponsorship and gate receipts organized by these federations
and associations. Surprisingly, the Serious Frauds Investigation Office (SFIO) does not appear to
have probed this glaring mismatch that may be a red flag for probable money laundering.
Even CPSUs are influenced to buy their corporate boxes for crores of Rupees and dole out ads, etc.
MoYAS awards have often been questioned for their integrity, much the same way as those of the
Akademis and many others. Indeed many a MoYAS award has been given to loyalists of cabals, that
fortuitously worked their way up this pernicious system, which is why many of them are today
speaking for the embattled ex-DDCA President, lest they face exclusion from national teams and
deprivation from major commercial product endorsement earnings. The same ex-President reportedly
declared his association members without blemish a few years ago, which too to the investigating
local police – for he believed that he was the judge, jury and pardoner, all rolled into one! As Oliver

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Goldsmith in his immortal poem Village Schoolmaster (1770) aptly penned, “….In arguing too, the
parson own'd his skill/ For e'en though vanquish'd he could argue still…” The arrogance of
invincibility is indeed all pervasive but brittle to a seasoned investigator’s touch.
Over time, sports federations and associations of all hues have come to command a giant empire
founded upon mediocrity and rampant corruption. Just as the perpetuation of poverty created
billionaires, rule by parallel governance networks has substantially added to the greatest wealth of
the privileged while the aam aadmi was held up on a pedestal like the legendary Shikhandi– the
tragic clown figure of Indian politics! The current reticence of the GoI to order a multi-agency probe
into DDCA may well compromise GoI itself, for most of the financial probing agencies report to the
Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Ministries. Otherwise, it could start the long overdue cleansing
of the pernicious stranglehold over sports in India. (Concluded)
The author is a senior public policy analyst and commentator