Indian Sports - Competing With The World

By Abhimanyu Halakhandi

Since the paltry age of nine, I have been keenly following a ton of sports. Till that point in my life, cricket was the only thing that came to mind when thinking of professional sports. It was not even close. Cricket was our religion and Sachin was our God.

But then came the 1998 football world cup held in France. One day I was randomly scrolling through the TV channels and I happened to come across the Quarterfinals of the tournament between England and Argentina. A player named David Beckham was in the headlines. He just got a red card and got ejected from the game. Even though it was a poor decision on his part that is what got me hooked to football.

I never looked back from that day. I learned more and more about the sport. Manchester United, the football club that David Beckham played for, made me fall in love with the sport. It was amazing and after I started following a plethora of other sports.

There are a lot of successful professional leagues in the world of various sports. Not only are they popular and have a huge fanbase but are also financially sustainable. There are many examples of this - NBA, NFL, European football clubs plus many more.

This is what has been lacking in India. We excel internationally in cricket but our success is limited elsewhere. I am not saying that we do not fare well in other sports, but our success is more down to individual brilliance rather than a strong domestic structure.

We are the second-largest populated country in the world and yet we were in the 48th position in the Tokyo Olympics. There isn't a direct correlation between population and medal tally but what I mean to say is that there are enough resources for us to be so much better.

Legendary Australian hockey player once interviewed for the position of head coach of the Indian hockey team. He told the selection committee only one thing - Do not expect immediate success but if you put in place the required rigid domestic structure, I can assure you great results in the long term.

The Indian hockey board did not like the idea of long-term but considerably sustainable success. That is the problem with the domestic scene of our country. We want immediate results yet we aren't willing to install the proper infrastructure for that to happen. As Einstein said - Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

To achieve continued international success we need to incentivize the other sports. There is a lack of funding in sports that are not named cricket. There is no shortage of money when it comes to cricket. Take for example the IPL - Young players get upward 20L without even having to play a single match. It is just an insane amount of money.

This is not the case with sports in India. That needs to change. Big companies like Reliance are investing huge and that is a positive step forward but we are still a million miles away from being competitive in the long term. Every nook and corner in this country should be involved for us to make great strides. Until there is a time that parents see pursuing a career in sports as financially viable we would still lag behind the world.

According to me, an efficient way to go about this is by prioritizing smaller areas. Connecting with the locals and getting invested both mentally and financially would be the best way to go forward. We have tonnes of talented athletes in this country just waiting for the right financial backing. In the case of team sports local level tournaments could be held. Find sponsors with whom there could be mutual benefitting. Make the players famous in their localities.

This may seem like a far-fetched idea but if done properly and on a large scale, it will yield results in the long term. Financial incentives go a long way in generating interest among the masses.

In the recent past steps have been taken to improve things and the signs have been encouraging. It will still a lot of time for us to be anywhere close to going toe to toe with the elites but if we keep focussing on the grassroots level, we will get there eventually.

By Abhimanyu Halakhandi