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NEW DELHI: Even as the Sports Ministry has identified focus disciplines such as hockey, wrestling, athletics and boxing in which the country can train sportspersons and win medals in international sporting events, FICCI is leading from the front to get ‘Industry‘ status to sports. Such a status would lead to flow of funds into sports and lead to innovation in sports technology.
These government and FICCI initiatives were unveiled here today at the inaugural session of the two-day ‘TURF 2012‘, 4th Global Sports Summit.
Addressing the summit, Punjab Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Sports Sukhbir Singh Badal said, "We do not have a plan or target for sports and it is not a priority in our country. There is no sense of security attached to a career in sports. We first need to change the mindset and see sports as a lucrative and successful full-time career option. To encourage students and parents, we must recognise sports as a worthwhile activity."
"In Punjab, we plan to open sports schools in all districts in the next three years. Also, Punjab Sports Institute is in the pipeline and is expected to be ready in three years. The institute will be armed with world-class facilities and we plan to have joint ventures with international players who will train and coach our children. We believe that for a sportsperson to compete on the world stage, he or she requires minimum 10,000 hours of training. Hence, we need to identify talent at the early age of six or seven years, so that by the time they attain the age of 17 years he or she is competent to face the competition at the world stage," remarked Badal.
On the occasion, FICCI-SkillsActive-Tanjun Associate report on ‘Institutional Capacity Building (Sports and Physical Activities), FICCI-Libero Sports India report on ‘Foreign Investments in Indian Football‘ and FICCI-Winning Matters report on ‘Enabling National Sports Federation and Industry Engagement‘ were released by Badal.
The state of sports in the country can be best adjudged by the astounding figures revealed in the FICCI-SkillsActive-Tanjun Associate report. Among those who pursue sports education in the form of Bachelors and Masters degree in Physical Education as high as 85 per cent of them are unable to pursue a career in sports because of lack of required skills, facilities for higher learning, global exposure and non-availability of options other than teaching physical education at primary or secondary levels.
No less than 39,150 students obtain Bachelors degree and 3030 students a Masters degree in Physical Education from 783 registered institutions in the organised sector in India. Close to 7,000 more colleges at current rates will be needed if we need to meet the goal of 0.3 million sports support personnel by 2017. Alternatively all passing students from existing colleges will need to be shown sustainable careers in sporting fields to hold them from drifting into other professions.
Justice Mukul Mudgal (Retd), Chief Justice, Haryana and Punjab High Court, remarked, "India hosted the Commonwealth Games and it proved that we have the capability to build sports infrastructure. We must aim for best practices, Public-Private Partnerships, legacy planning and ensure that the positives and negatives outcomes are all translated into action. Also, more coordination is must amongst ministries, federation and industry for all to benefit."
Onkar Kedia, Joint Secretary, Sports, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, underlined the fact that at present India‘s expenditure on sports is a mere two per cent and the per capita expenditure is two paisa per day. "If we want to make our presence felt in the international arena then this percentage must rise to five," he added.
"We need to change the sporting culture in the country and encourage students to take up sports as a career. The Government is also helping elite sportspersons like P T Usha to set up training academies. It is time that we join hands with the private sector and set up sports institutes," Kedia said.
FICCI President R V Kanoria pointed out that FICCI is India‘s only apex chamber of commerce with a dedicated sports division and full time sports experts. "In our constant endeavor to support government in policy reforms, FICCI represented to the government on granting industry status to sports sector," he said.
"One of the biggest difficulties in sports is non-availability of data and documented knowledge related to sports. Also, there is no budgetary support to provide research and development support in sports. Bridging this knowledge gap is the first and foremost exercise that we should undertake. It is important to collect data related to different sports, athletes, there classification in to different training groups based on their performance, their sport, coaches, and support system. This is in addition to need of mapping sports infrastructure across India which indeed is a challenge considering multiplicity of authorities e.g. states, SAI, Federations, states, ministry of HRD, Defense, railways and so on," explained Kanoria.
"Based on our constant interactions with experts from the government, academia, athletes, media, and sports fraternity in India and internationally. The focus areas for TURF 2012 is: legacy planning of sports infrastructure; institutional capacity building; Soccer development and sustainable investment in sports: creating value for all," said FICCI Sports Committee chairman and ESPN Software India MD Aloke Malik..
He added, "With the already identified need for more meticulously planned development and maintenance of sports infrastructure in the country, the significance of involving private sector is top of the agenda in the TURF. The Government is providing policy support with initiatives like ‘Come and Play scheme‘, contributing the land, and inviting private sector to adapt SAI centers. Here we would be deliberating on how industry can partner with the Government for proficiency in design, development, operation and maintenance of sports infrastructure so that it is a win-win situation for all the sides - Government, National Sports Federations, Industry."
Sanjiv Paul, Co-chairman, FICCI Sports Committee & Vice President, Corporate Services, Tata Steel, said, "At present, due to knowledge gaps, the very absence of institutional capacity building, entrepreneurship, factor of production and finances in sports the multiplier effects due to these inter-linkages has not reached its optimal potential in India and bridging this knowledge gap will help us perform better on all these indicators as they say, ‘when you know better you do better‘."
Shooting and Boxing are India‘s top Olympic sports
FICCI, in association with Winning Matters Consulting Private Limited has initiated a first-of-its-kind assessment/ research study towards enabling a stronger and more structured engagement between the Indian Industry and the National Sports Federations (NSFs).
In recognition that despite India‘s historic performances at the recent London Olympic Games a lot needs to be done towards enabling India‘s true sporting potential, FICCI and Winning Matters Consulting this year focused on assessing and enabling National Sports Federations (NSFs) towards facilitating Industry engagement. Keeping this in mind, a research study titled "Enabling National Sports Federations and Industry Engagement" has been prepared for the FICCI Global Sports Summit.
To start with, the Study looks into the sports performance assessment of 21 Olympic sports (20 Individual sports with Hockey being the only teamsport) based on their medal winning performances at major multi-sport events between 2008 and 2012 using the Sports Performance Index (SPITM) for benchmarking them. As the medal distribution and domination of a country varies between sports, a Normalization Coefficient has been introduced to reduce the bias.
The top 5 sports based on their Normalized SPI scores are: Shooting, Boxing, Wrestling, Archery and Athletics respectively. It is worth noting, that while Shooting is the undisputed leader among other sports within India, it has only been able to capture 26.54% of the SPI score when benchmarked with top countries in Shooting; the only sport that outshines Shooting in that respect is Boxing which has been able to capture 36.01% of the SPI score when benchmarked with top countries in Boxing.
Keeping in mind that in today‘s time and age websites are a key communication platform for information assimilation and dissemination toward building the confidence of the key stakeholders - participants, consumers and investors - the study looks at the websites of top NSFs around the world - with a focus on the USA, Great Britain and Australia - to learn what they do to enable greater participation, support top talent and engage / leverage the associations with sponsors and partners. In the Indian context, it was noted that the NSF websites of the Wrestling Federation of India, National Rifle Association of India and Badminton Association of India have the most information amongst the21 NSFs, but still have roughly only 50% of the information when benchmarked with some of the top NSF websites.
In the backdrop of this study, a detailed NSF questionnaire cum self-assessment form looking at Performance; Participation; Events; Funding, Sponsorships and Marketing; Administration/Governance, along with a proprietary software tool has been developed by Winning Matters Consulting incorporating global best practices. The Study ends with an abridged version of the questionnaire with a brief summary report which includes a snapshot of the qualitative analysis done on the self-assessment provided by one of the NSFs.
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