Sports management and Corruption

And today.. a rant on sports management inspired by a mind numbingly cock interview from a member of my alumnus..

This boy was known as Tuffloo in college.. he is now apparently... "India's youngest professional sports and entertainment lawyer".. killer stuff!

Asswipe College (renamed from so as not to offend true concentration camp survivors, their families and general hyper people).. trains its inmates in the art of bullshit very well. See my earlier blog on this.

However, to be entirely fair, he's a smart kid who loved sports and shah rukh khan. And because he's a lawyer he'll be a lot better than a lot of sports agents you'll find in India.

On the topic of sports management, it is time to air my views on corruption in India.

Now, corruption according to me is the main reason why we are crap in sports.

It is a pretty well established fact that especially in teams like the Delhi Ranji and junior teams, it is political influence and money that gets you selected. And cricket is supposedly the best administrated sport. I have heard that tribals and dalits have been turned away at hockey selections because they are of lower birth and therefore, obviously not good enough to play sports. You have fat coaches and administrators trying to squeeze whatever money they can out of the system. The players, of course, get nothing.

In short, sports administrators are as bad if not worse than income tax officials and cops.

If you see Lord of War, you will notice this part on how chopping limbs as punishment which is rampant is some parts of Africa was learnt from the Europeans.

It is my theory, based on no evidence whatsoever excepting for one irrelevant example that corruption in India became endemic because of the British.

I will also circumvent the editorial policy of short blogging to make this point. (As an irrelevant aside, here is my blog entry where i randomnly invented this policy)

I had occassion to witness the inner workings of one of Kolkata's and India's premier clubs. A place where the who's who of society come to shed their hair (they're old and farty).

I was horrified to learn that office bearers have harpic, soap and toilet paper bought for the club loos delivered to their homes for their private use. One member collects the club newspapers and sells it for raddi money. Another carried away the Colin provided to cleanse the cycles/treadmills of sweat after you're done as a courtesy to fellow members. Of course, contracts for buying golf course maintenance equipment are not awarded without the mandatory kickbacks. They were thinking about buying a four lakh bunker raking machine (which is used on courses which have bunkers over 100 yards long) and as no bunker on the club course is more than 5-10 yards a small stink arose. You can pay a guy 1500 bucks a month to do it and create a job.

Many of these people are serving or have retired as CEO or very senior management from some of India's top companies. This is not a government office.

For a long time, this club was administrated by a Britisher. Till as late as the 90's.

Under this Britisher, rules were rules and he kept the record books clean. He himself took kickbacks (the most famous being that British Airways was allowed a huge hoarding not only if they paid the advertising fees but also gave the man complimentary tickets for trips home) but nobody else dared do it.

After he left and Indians took over. All hell broke loose. Every guy who got power wanted his own. This was when the abovementioned toilet supplies started getting stolen.

I firmly believe that this story can be translated to the whole of India.

India has been plundered for centuries by people like Gazni and Co. But no one did it as systematically as the British. Lord Clive, first of the nabobs said he was suprised by his modesty at taking what he was offered. He carried away millions. We have been trained in the art of corruption. Everyone is out to get their own.

India is plundered ruthlessly, only today by its own people and elected representatives. The latest to join the bandwagon:

My place or yours, Sepp?

Yep. My favourite person .. PRDM and Co. For my extremely boring rant on him, see here.

Apparently, AIFF has spent over Rs. 50 lakhs on amongst other things, hiring mercs for Sepp Blatters contingent and ..and.. this one blows me away.. suits worth Rs. 10,000 a piece for each indian official attending the meeting... Has anyone seen the crap jerseys footballers play in?

The logic here is simple. It's a small investment.

Here they were.. kicking themselves for being football administrators when they could have been living the good life leaking stories to the press from five star suites serving on cricket boards.. and then.. in a flash of smoke and holy music arrived the President of FIFA.. a man who could send millions of dollars their way... we're going to be rich, they said, richer than our wildest dreams!

My only hope is that morons do not get to be President of FIFA and have their terms extended for doing a good job. From watching Sepp Blatters interview on zee sports (ugh) i got the view he's here to see how football can be self-sustaining rather than pumping millions down the pipe full of holes that is Indian football.

Curses! the AIFF is going to say.. foiled again!! Well, at least we got some nice suits!