NEW DELHI: India should make use of the newer technologies available that have massively reduced infrastructure development costs, with the focus being on providing access to as many sports as possible to as many people as possible, while at the same time creating a proper coaching framework that serves both the top and bottom of the pyramid.
These were among the salient points highlighted during a lively session of the day-long National Conference on Business of Sports, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), here recently.
Arunava Chaudhuri, Germany based football consultant and journalist, chaired the session titled “Creating and enabling eco system for sports – looking beyond infrastructure.
Speaking for the government, Neeraj Kansal, Secretary, Sports Authority of India, identified coaching, sports science back-up and fall back options for the many who don’t make it to the top in competitive sports as the areas of attention.
Expanding on that, Kansal noted that coachng at the top level and also at the participation level needed drastic improvement.
“Coaching at school level is often not just inadequate but wrong. We at SAI want to develop a complete coaching framework that addresses both the top and bottom of the pyramid,” Kansal pointed out.
On the point of sports science back-up, Kansal stressed that any country that had ambitions of scaling the top heights of sport had to be abreast with the latest developments in science and technology in the sporting arena.
Top tennis stars like Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal, whose injury issues are as well documented as his performances on the court, are prime examples of athletes who use the latest in science to not only maximise their capabilities but also help in recovery after marathon matches.
Particularly relevant for those inclined to sports in a country like India are fallback options, Kansal noted. These avenues were absolutely essential if one wants to see more people entering the domain, he stressed.
Tassos Sioulas, technical director, Sesa Football Academy, buttressed Kansal’s point when he noted that parental resistance was a big issue as far as getting talented youngsters to opt for sport full time.
“Parents don’t want to send kids to academies as they are worried that academics will be neglected. So academies need to ensure that education is not compromised, Sioulas said. But he was quick to point out that is sould work both ways. The attention given to sport in schools in India is abysmal, he lamented.
Not only that, the coaching is so bad that often talented kids have to be completely retrained from scratch when they come to academies. That is at the grassroots development level.
At the professional level, the tale is no different, Sioulas lamented. “The I-League is the top tier of Indian club football and that is about the only league that exists as far as a proper structure is concerned. There is hardly a second division. There is no third division. You need more divisions in professional football so that players get maximum opportunities to compete,” he opined.
“If you have 14-16 I-League clubs, there should be many more 2nd division clubs and from there down even more third division clubs. Unless there is such a structure in place, finding and nurturing talent will always remain a hit and miss affair. In a small country like Greece, we have 18 first division sides, 28 in the 2nd division and 96 in the third,” Sioulas noted.
“Expand the base. That should be the main focus of sports administrators in this country,” Sioulas stressed.
Taking forward the point Kansal made about fallback options, Sukhvinder Singh, MD of the football-focused agency Libero Sports said that if the aim to be a professional footballer does not work out, then if the individual is truly passionate about the sport then he/she should look to becoming a football professional.
“There are so many components of the ecosystem which lack specialisation, expertise. What I identified through my management education was that sports lacked marketing expertise and that the very core function of sponsorship management, that didn’t exist. In India, when it comes to sport, there is too much of generalists.”
Erick Haskell, MD, adidas Group India, noted that while “big brands like adidas are known for performance. Whether it is sponsoring the big teams like Bayern Munich and Chelsea, it is actually participation, or building the base, where we really spend time in countries like India and China, where I was before”.
“While people see the big matches or big sponsorships with teams like Bayern Munich or Chelsea, what we do locally is actually to leverage these assets to build the base,” Haskell elaborated.
“It’s really all about leveraging the big team names and individuals to effectively build a base at the grassroots.”
Taking up on the title of the session – “looking beyond infrastructure” – Anil Kumar, MD, Great Sports Infra, said, “As long as the government and all of us in this room continue to see infrastructure as these huge white elephants costing 100s of crores as an investment, we are never really going to get very far on infrastructure.”
Kumar noted, “There are so many newer technologies that actually make infrastructure investment quite viable. Take these huge investments away from the mind.
“Rather than spending 100 crore on building a stadium, it’s far more beneficial to the population to have a ground costing, say 10 crore, where you have the basic playing surfaces that are multi-sport and multi-purpose. Coming back to schools, there is a new generation of surfaces that are not very expensive and last over 20 years.”
“There are many solutions that are very apt for a club level, for a residential complex, etc. Meanwhile, pointing to the abysmal lack of quality facilities in the country, Renedy Singh, Indian national football team vice captain and president, Football Players Association of India noted, “There is not a single ground in India that is up to international standards where the national team can train.”
Looking at the positives, Singh said, “The situation is improving. It is going in the right direction but the pace is too slow.
Haskell summed it up well when he stressed, “Access is the key. Focus on growing the base. Access to as many sports as possible to as many people as possible is the direction India should go. Accessible common spaces for anyone and everyone is what that means.”
