The jury's out on the sports bill
In the Hindustan Times , Sanjay Dixit, the Rajasthan Cricket Academy secretary, writes that the bill proposed by the sports ministry to regulate all national sports bodies including the BCCI will control the cricket board too much
Dustin Silgardo
25-Feb-2013
In the Hindustan Times, Sanjay Dixit, the Rajasthan Cricket Academy secretary, writes that the bill proposed by the sports ministry to regulate all national sports bodies including the BCCI will control the cricket board too much. He says the bill prescribes too many specific things and will therefore interfere with the working of the BCCI.
As far as age prescriptions go, I am not clear how limiting it to below-70 would help. A sportsman spends all his youth playing and it’s only around the age of 40 he starts getting into sports administration. If we want experienced sportsmen to retire by 70, there is a huge contradiction here. Non-sportsmen get into administration much earlier. Thus, the avowed purpose of the Bill of making more sportsmen part of the top administration gets defeated by prescribing age limits.
Vidushpat Singhania, however, says in the same paper that the bill does not control the board but simply holds it accountable. He also suggests a means by which the BCCI can come under the Right to Information Act without there being too many unnecessary petitions filed.
A distinction that could be deliberated is to limit the scope of RTI in sports only to a decision or process having an economical impact, whilst leaving sporting decisions and rules outside its ambit. A similar distinction between pure sporting decisions and decisions having an economic impact has been discussed in Europe and a similar principle can be adopted in India.
Dustin Silgardo is a former sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo