Just not sport

THE indiscriminate use of two prominent stadia in the national capital for non-sports events is a bad advertisement for a country that aspires to host the Olympic Games in 2036. The Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) reply to an RTI query has revealed that only 11 of the 131 events held at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium this year were related to sports; the rest included concerts and programmes organised by government organisations, NGOs and political parties. Indira Gandhi International Stadium hosted 48 events, of which just five pertained to sports.

The sorry state of affairs was glaringly highlighted when popular singer-actor Diljit Dosanjh’s concert, held at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on October 26-27, left a trail of garbage and broken athletics equipment. The mess prompted Beant Singh, a Delhi-based runner, to vent his anger on social media. Slamming the organisers for making the stadium inaccessible for training for several days, he lamented the lack of respect and support for sportspersons in the country. His outburst has resonated with fellow players, but it seems to have left the authorities unmoved.

The SAI, set up 40 years ago with the objectives of promoting sports and achieving sporting excellence at the national and international levels, urgently needs to get its priorities right. Last year, in its performance audit report, the Comptroller & Auditor General of India had taken the premier sports body to task for focusing more on revenue generation and renting out stadiums for non-sports functions. The bitter truth is that India’s consistent rise on the global geopolitical stage is in stark contrast to its laggard status in international sports. The below-par performance in this year’s Olympics has shown that the nation has a very long way to go before it can become a sporting powerhouse. The least that can be done is to ensure that stadia are not misused for commercial purposes.