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SPORTS: MOTOR RACING
What's The Game?
Lack of purpose and planning threaten to reduce
the
Rs 100-crore sports meet to a costly public relations-and face-saving-exercise
for the Indian Olympic Association
By Sharad Gupta
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STATE OF THE
STADIA: The IOA's decision to organise the Games at short notice means
that (from above) the Nehru, Talkatora and National stadiums are only
now being readied
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Indian athletes
arriving for the first-ever Afro-Asian Games (AAG) in November will be
in for a surprise: they won't have to live in rat-infested rooms in Nehru
Stadium fighting flies rather than the competition but will travel to
the capital by air, live in five-star hotels and travel in air-conditioned
buses. But not because the country has decided to give its athletes the
respect and comforts they deserve. These luxuries will be extended only
during the Games and will be swiftly taken away once they end. Then the
waste of the entire exercise-costing more than Rs 100 crore-will probably
hit the athlete and the taxpayer the hardest.
The Indian Olympic Association (IOA), organisers
of the Afro-Asian Games, is treating them as a huge public-relations exercise
for "promotion" of sports in Africa and Asia. "The Games
will increase Afro-Asian solidarity," says Suresh Kalmadi, working
chairman of the AAG Organising Committee and president of the IOA. Kalmadi
says the AAG are "an attempt to break the monopoly of Americans and
Europeans. They (Europe and the US) get to host meets because they support
each other's candidature but there is no cooperation between Asia and
Africa."
The AAG may in fact turn out to be a very expensive
face-saving and public-relations exercise for Kalmadi and the IOA, whose
track record, even in the Asian and African fraternity, is not good. India
made a bid for the 2006 Asian Games and was supported only by one country-Bhutan-out
of 44 Asian nations. Kalmadi's explanation is that the IOA's bid budget
wasn't big enough. "Other countries spend millions of dollars in
bids but India spent only Rs 75 lakh. The result is for all to see."
However, none of the 100-plus members of the IOA contingent sent to the
Sydney Olympics to lobby had stadia passes. An IOA official claims that
lack of access to stadia and hotels prevented them from giving the Indian
effort the edge. Unfazed, the IOA now wants to host the 2010 Commonwealth
Games.
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"The
Games will end US and European monopoly."
SURESH KALMADI, Chairman,
Organising Committee, AAG
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It is difficult to understand why India, which
lacks resources to bid for events, wants to spend Rs 100 crore on the
AAG. In a departure from common practice, the Games organisers will offer
free air tickets and five-star accommodation to players and officials.
The only country to have offered free air travel was South Korea during
the Seoul Olympics. But after being swamped by official requests, Seoul
only paid for the athletes' tickets. An IOA official claims that the money
being showered on the event like confetti should have been spent on improvement
of facilities and equipment for Indians. Kalmadi believes otherwise. "A
spinoff of the Games would be updated sports stadia," he says.
Now the situation has reached such a pass that
in a transparent attempt to please as many people in the IOA and the Government
as possible, a gaggle of committees and subcommittees-with a total of
500 members-has been formed comprising a host of Sangh Parivar luminaries,
apparently on Union Sports Minister Uma Bharati's recommendation. These
include editors of RSS mouthpieces-Sheshadri Chari of Organiser (vice-chairman,
Ceremonies Committee) and Tarun Vijay of Panchajanya (vice-chairman, Media
Committee)-about two dozen BJP youth wing leaders and MPs. Strangely enough,
mountaineers Bachendri Pal and Santosh Yadav have been named on the Stadia
Committee. BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha is chairman of the Hospitality Sub-committee.
To compound matters, a number of members have already resigned since their
consent was never procured before they were "appointed" on the
various committees. Says BJP Rajya Sabha member Balbir Punj who resigned
as chairman of the Marketing Committee: "My interest in sports was
never more than watching a few matches on TV. I was not consulted before
being given the task." There are 27 committees, of which about five
meet every day. Members who live outside Delhi are entitled to free airfare
and a daily travel allowance of Rs 1,000. According to an Organising Committee
circular, every committee member from outside Delhi is allowed to claim
three days of travel allowance for a one-day meeting.
The cost of hosting the Games has been revised
three times: from an estimate of Rs 40 crore last year to Rs 56 crore
after the addition of hockey and weightlifting to the disciplines. By
the time the Government clearance came in April this year, the cost was
once again revised to Rs 110 crore. The Government will pitch in with
Rs 37 crore for improvement of infrastructure and an additional Rs 20
crore for the conduct of the Games, leaving the organising committee to
raise the remaining amount through sponsorship and sale of telecast and
broadcast rights.
An indication that the Games were poorly and
sloppily planned came when it was discovered that they would coincide
with major international tennis and hockey tournaments and club soccer
leagues. Now the IOA is in an unholy haste to get the dates of the events
of the hockey and tennis tournaments changed. At the moment there is no
weightlifting federation in the country to select players for the AAG
after a Kolkata court disbanded the ad-hoc federation in existence. If
there ever was a shambles waiting to happen, the Afro-Asian Games would
be its advertisement.
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