How we can democratise sports governance

Source: The post is based on an article “How we can democratise sports governance?” published in the Indian Express on 26^th August 2022.

Syllabus: GS 2 Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and Issues arising out of their Design and Implementation.

Relevance: Sports Governance Reforms

News: There has been a judicial push for reforms in various sporting bodies, football, hockey, table tennis and the Indian Olympic Association. In recent, apart from this, India has also witnessed a suspension from FIFA in football.

Sports Governance reforms in India

Much of the recent reform action in Indian sports administration bodies have been in the courts.

For example, Judiciary has proposed the nomination of 36 “eminent” former players as members of the general body of AIFF alongside the 36 representatives of the state football associations

Legal regime for Sports Governance in India

There are various national legal systems bringing regulations to enforce their notion of good governance. The Indian version is the National Sports Development Code, 2011, fondly known as the Sports Code.

The Sports Code assembles dozens of government notifications issued over a few decades. Its administrative directions are binding on federations. Further, it provides the minimum standards that a sports body must comply with to retain the sports ministry’s annual recognition.

The Olympic Charter has a provision for the election of athlete representatives as members of the National Olympic Committee and their boards. This involves the creation of federation-recognised athlete membership bodies that include both active and recently-retired athletes with the right to vote their representatives into membership and federation posts.

The Olympic Charter sets a minimum of two athletes as members and one as an executive committee member of the National Olympic Committee (that is, the IOA) but has no upper limit for either.

What are the issues in sports governance in India?

At the heart of the controversy are differing conceptions of a) what “democratic” decision-making in federations looks like, b) who should be members of sports federations, and c) who have the right to vote in and stand for elections in these bodies.

At present, sports bodies are governed by a number of interest groups. The decision-making in these bodies is subjected to political and other considerations which go against sporting interests.

Although the Judiciary has proposed reforms, it is believed that the judiciary is not the ideal arbiter of sports governance standards.

What are the challenges in Sports Governance?

The sports persons or athletes are not adequately represented in the electoral colleges of the sports bodies. These athletes have been alienated from the administration since the days of their youth. Therefore, they have little experience in sports governance.

Athletes might end up as effective sports administrators. There is an equal chance that they will not.

It is attractive to start with reforms at the top. However, the quality at the top of the sports pyramid, be it of athletes or administrators, depends entirely on what emerges from the bottom.

What are the suggestions to improve sports governance?

(1) There is a strong belief that athletes must be given a powerful voice in sports administration.

(2) The autonomy of sports federations is a vital pillar of the sports movement. This will enable sports bodies to act independently through their own democratic structures, free from governmental and external influence. This autonomy is not the antithesis of public accountability.

(3) Reforms must be taken from the bottom of the pyramid, i.e., to reconstitute district and state bodies that feed into the national sports governance pyramid.

(4) The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) judgment held that the Sports Code provisions are also applicable right down the sports pyramid.

(5) The focus of reform efforts must be on training sports governors and administrators, both athletes and non-athletes.

(6) There must be athlete commissions and athlete representation in every district, state and national sports body. Further, these bodies must be embedded in decision-making in reasonable numbers.