The Hindu : Sport : Padukone compliments Indian cricket board

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Padukone compliments Indian cricket board

Principal Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Former All England champion and badminton great Prakash Padukone complimented the BCCI for earmarking Rs. 50 crores for other Olympic disciplines.

He was speaking at the `Legends Talk', which kicked off the Sports Journalists' Federation of India's annual convention here on Tuesday.

But Prakash was wary of the way the funds were going to be utilised and did not want the money to be routed through the sports associations or the Indian Olympic Association.

Call for a committee

He suggested a formation of a committee of ex-sportspersons and reputed coaches who will draw up the list of sportspersons. The committee should be given clear-cut guidelines for the usage of funds and selecting sportspersons.

The Arjuna Awardee said that 75 per cent of the funds should be allocated to junior and sub-junior players while the rest of the amount should be earmarked for the seniors who are good enough to show result in one or two years.

Long term contracts

He was not in favour of long term contracts to sportspersons as it would lead to complacency. Instead he mooted the idea of one-year contracts with yearly review and performance based renewal.

Prakash suggested a small penalty for non-performance, which could be a cut in sponsorship money.

He said young sportspersons under this scheme should be given achievable goals and it was one way of keeping them on their toes.

Prakash warned that one of the potential flaws will be wasting money on grooming sportspersons in the 10, 12 and 13 age-groups as there is no guarantee that they would play sports beyond a particular level.

"From my experience, majority of them stop sports in pursuit of their studies. So ideally onus should be on sportspersons between 17 and 18 years of age."

He added that the other sports federations should take a cue from BCCI as to how it marketed the game and brought money into cricket.

But he said the BCCI should themselves take a leaf out of sports federations in other countries, which are private companies.

Usha's advice

The former sprint queen P.T. Usha said that BCCI should give more importance to athletics, which is the mother of all sports. Praising the BCCI for its benevolence, Usha said that funds should be allotted to organisations, which are accountable and transparent. She said that a strict monitoring process should be in force to ensure that the funds reached the promising talents.

George Thomas, the former National badminton champion and Arjuna Awardee, said that the gesture from BCCI was unbelievable and the decision will help to promote other disciplines in a big way.

A.N. Ravindradas, KSJA secretary, welcomed the gathering. Sandeep Nakai, SJFI president, also spoke on the occasion.

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