Why Gopichand stands out

In a world of ambiguous scruples and blurring lines between what is wrong and right, talking about ethics and its moral compass may seem like lighting a candle in front of the sun or playing a trumpet to the deaf. Yet, talk we must, especially in the framework of sports and the belief that fair play is its essence and winning or losing are two sides of the same coin. Even if it may be a self-defeating illusion to divest sports from the larger reality of this world, there is no harm in reminding the vast mass of sports followers in India that we should admire, love and appreciate a role model who follows the principle that the “means used to achieve an end are more important than the end itself”.

Remember Pullela Gopichand? The former All-England badminton champion, only the second Indian to achieve this feat after Prakash Padukone, has been the torchbearer of the badminton revolution in India, whose coaching academy in Bengaluru has changed the face of the sport and made India its thriving hub. I remember him for something else, an act that in today’s world seems impossible. It is a world where sportspersons (read cricketers) endorse any brand — good, bad, ugly — as long as the money earned from advertising it is substantial. At his peak, when he was dominating the international circuit before an injury affected his summit march, he had declined to promote a cola product. We don’t know its financial implications but suffice it to say that the money offered must have been tempting, as badminton is no cricket and even its champion players are not pampered with money like cricketers are.

Gopi, as he is fondly called, had created a fund of goodwill in the sporting world by an act which in today’s ecosystem would be considered vacuous, if not downright stupid. Lost to the world would have been Gopi’s strong, sincere intentions of not wanting to wrongly promote a sugar-sweetened drink as bringing health benefits to budding sportspersons.

What does Gopi think today of what he did more than two decades ago? He sent this recorded message when I reached out to him: “For me, I just took a stand because it was very personal. I did not drink cola for a very long time. And for me to endorse something which I don’t do myself, I felt was not right. It is a very personal decision and it is a very subjective decision… and each one has their own reasons for doing things or not doing something, I don’t want to get into that. As far as I am concerned, it is something I just didn’t do. I didn’t endorse it.”

Gopi, it should be obvious, felt strongly not to promote something which he believed didn’t serve the larger cause of promoting the sport he played, unlike a vast majority of top-notch cricket stars who probably did not even bat an eyelid before endorsing Fantasy leagues and online apps like Dream XI and MyCircle XI.

A few years before these “dreams” were to be sold in India, a game called 6UP was launched. All you had to do was predict the score off each ball of an over and if done correctly, you could win double or even triple the amount of money you had bet on it. It caused a debate in the media and in a very critical piece, I highlighted the gambling nature of the so-called “skill” game. This 6UP was being promoted by former Australian captain Steve Waugh, who invited me for lunch at one of Delhi’s expensive hotels, The Imperial. For about an hour, Waugh tried to persuade me to change my mind and convince me that predicting the result of a six-ball over is a skill, and not gambling. Waugh was to fund his charity which he launched in Kolkata from the profits to be made from this game, but due to the strong legal challenge and the sports ministry’s opposition, 6UP never took off.

While 6UP failed, a decade later, the fantasy leagues succeeded in establishing themselves. To circumvent the ban on betting in India, they masqueraded their products as a game of skills. The courts accepted their arguments. A vast army of young and old across India, rural or urban, were now hooked to their mobiles, making their own teams, betting on them, especially during the Indian Premier League, and suffering financial ruin and developing disastrous symptoms of addiction.

Despite multiple examples of people getting addicted and many even dying by suicide after heavy financial losses, these fantasy leagues were thriving and creating their own revenue-generating models. They made cricket across the country dependent on their financial support by being its major sponsors.

And to make their “fantasy” sound palatable, credible and spread its reach, an assembly of top cricketers were hired to promote them. From Sourav Ganguly to Shubman Gill, from Virat Kohli to Rohit Sharma, almost every star was now selling these games for personal benefits, indifferent and insensitive to the fact that they were inviting people to financial destruction.

The State may have struck the right note today by banning betting on these games, but the world of sports administration and its main protagonist, the players, have to realise that they live in a country with huge income disparities. They have to differentiate between greed and need. If the two converge, it can create a monster that will devour the bottom rung, even while cricket thrives in India.

— The writer is the author of ‘Not Quite Cricket’ and ‘Not Just Cricket’