There is a saying in Nepali sports fraternity: Rajniti ma khel ra khel ma rajniti le garera dubai chhetra bigriyo (Game in politics and politics in game have damaged both the sectors. Khel can mean either sports or a dirty game, in political sense).
This is a fact everybody in Nepali sports accepts. Minister for Youth and Sports Ganesh Tiwari Nepali is one of them. Reviewing Nepal´s failure in the Asian Games 2010, Minister Nepali declared ´politics is to be blamed for the sorry state of sports´. He went on: ´The sports bodies have become recruitment ground for political parties.´
Very true. But the straight-speaking Minister Nepali had also once (immediately after his appointment) famously said he did not know anything about sports. And quite unfortunately, he is also the one who delayed the appointment of the member secretary of the National Sports Council (NSC) in lack of a candidate within his own party.
Sadly, for long time now, sports sector has never figured as a priority to our government. Given the political upheavals and other areas prioritized for development, the indifference is understandable. Nepali sports has already reeled under the lack of plans, preparation and most importantly budgets. But the biggest hurdle the sports has persistently faced till date is not the lack of plan, preparation or budget. Rather the dirty game of politics between the officials, that has permeated into the sector, has hampered the development of sports the most for the last few decades.
The sports officials squabbling for leadership and making rounds of ministries for budget to cover participation costs has become a routine before every major competition. There have been instances when some sports participation had to be called off due to lack of professionalism on the part of officials (kabaddi could not participate in Asian Games this year for example). In many cases players have broken into tears unable to withstand officials fighting on the arena just before the match (again, kabaddi in South Asian Games earlier this year). At other times they had to cut short their foreign training after the officials failed to get the budget (taekwondo for example).
In between all this, the players have to endure so much mental pressure that when the plane finally leaves the runway, they breathe a huge sigh of relief. Under such circumstances, Nepali players have to put up extraordinary show for a medal at the Asian level. Given the situation, to expect medals is like asking them to accomplish the impossible. I salute those players who even dare to try; and those who actually do the magic and bring a medal or two, ensuring the country´s position on the medal stands.
This year, in the recently concluded Asian Games, the face-saver was Dipak Maharjan, who managed a bronze in boxing. Nepal´s otherwise favorite discipline, taekwondo, had failed to repeat the past glory despite boasting a couple of household names like Ayasha Shakya and Manita Shahi. In an interview to Kantipur TV, they blamed themselves for the defeat. But hidden under their words of pain was a clear, concise message: we lacked preparation and experience for a big stage.
But to write what exactly ails Nepali sports is no good. For those who are in-charge of sports know better than us. They are just ignoring the issues that plagues sports sector as all the want is power, money and foreign trips. If this is not true, why does Minister Tiwari not ask the NSC member secretary he had appointed to resign as ´its [NSC´s] performance is not satisfactory´ in his own words.
If he was honest in expressing his feeling about the role of politics in bringing sports down to a sorry state, should he not lead by example by resigning from his post to improve the situation?
As published in Republica.
0 responses to “Politics in Sports”
These shots at the Nepal Government are unwarranted when it comes to sports. Yes GON does not help the situations, but all of Nepal’s sports associations, clubs, unions are rife with infighting and incompetence. Even if the government did not interfere in sports and allocated huge sums to these sports associations, do you really think that results would be any different? Look at CAN and ANFA for example, two of the more ‘stable’ associations that have decent bank balances – when was the last time they punched at or above their weight?
The government would be better served focusing on grassroots sports. Create sports programs for government schools, require all students to complete minimum hours of sports, require every VDC to have at least one playground/sports area, register every sports field in the country and make it illegal to commercially develop them, make sports equipment duty free, create/translate sports manuals into Nepali, start a national health/fitness campaign for adults, etc.
“In between all this, the players have to endure so much mental pressure that when the plane finally leaves the runway, they breathe a huge sigh of relief.”
Politics in sports… Ujjwal Acharya… got that u’re blunt, mate – especially in the end…
@Biplav: I do wholeheartedly agree with your view on where government need to focus. And, the whole of second paragraph. You know this because you love sports and you follow sports. My bottomline in the article was that to develop sports, people with sports knowledge are required at policy and implementation level.
And, about CAN and ANFA, the first runs on adhoc committee and the second, on individual’s dominance that makes them all powerful to a point where they do not fear the elections – so they are not required to push hard for development or performance.
why you are not commenting about so called bosses of associations,holding their posts without any responsibility,
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