The lure of limelight and power is probably what makes our Politicians hang on to Chairs of the various sporting Federations in India. I was struggling to figure out why a Minister was spewing out solutions for the shameless public forehand and backhand slurs being thrashed about between two of our finest, yet now, unsporting tennis heroes! The penny dropped. Of course, this Minister is also the Chair of some Tennis federation! And of course, who else knows what's right for Indian Tennis. Obviously an Unsporting Politician. Someone who knows how to lobby better than any Lob a Vijay Amrithraj or Borg could ever attempt. Tennis players play with guile, grace and raw power too. A Politician doesn't need to camouflage stokes. They rarely hide their greed for power. What happens to the sport is far away from their thoughts. And that is what surprises us sports lovers. How these two or three tennis players of world repute, have brought about a shameless power play right out into the open. Sportsmanship, a word derived from the very ethos of a sportsman has been poisoned, crucified, decimated and will soon be cremated. FairPlay and Gentlemanship, words that used to be synonymous with Tennis greats like Vijay Amrithraj and Indian tennis, are no longer applicable.
Why this venom? Why this hatred?
And the only answer I can find is in the way the Federations are run by our politicians. The same way most of them run their shamelessly open corrupt lives. The BCCI is wealthy and thus powerful and by constantly doling out cash awards, they're able to silence and stifle out aggrieved whimpers of players who didn't toe their line. But the other federations, the Olympic and other Sports Associations - each one has a Chair and numerous other power posts - occupied to the best of my layman knowledge by a politician. These positions give them access to a world body, where quite often their allegiance to a particular international candidate could have remunerative incentives. FIFA is a classic case. Less importantly, each federation has a budget, procurement tasks and least importantly travel options. Thus Federation heads are able to travel, offers tickets to events for favours, exposing our Sports to a vy unsporting unethical trait. And it is very easy for this cancer to spread. In our democratic nation, we believe that two terms in offices of appointment should be the norm. Yet some of our Federation heads have been in these seats for decades. Tainted in other forms of public life, they shamelessly continue to fight to remain in those seats.
When the head of a Fish is rotten, the rest of the fish rots too.
And when we say public exhibition, I must say that the change in media formats and a blatant need for TRPs causes our news media to push for more public statements.
Reporters harassing a personality to make a faux pas in public too is a cause of this. I'm sure if a Hesh or a Lee had a day or two to think before making public statements, this would quite likely have resolved their differences. But would it have resolved the media thirst. Would it have resolved a Politcians thirst? I doubt it.
And this is why we have a public shameless fight between two of our most successful and famous sportspersons. Shame on them. But shame on the politics that has led them to this shallowness in character.
End Note: I don't believe that all our politicians are greedy and blind. We have some very dedicated ones - but then the disease does not stem from the few good corpusceles in your blood. It stems from the overwhelming virus!
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