Winning ways: Delhi must study global best sports management practices

The Delhi government’s decision to substantially increase cash rewards and government jobs for medal-winning sportspeople from the city representing the Union Territory and the country at national and international levels is a laudable attempt to build a healthy sporting culture. Under the Mukhyamantri Khel Protsahan Yojana (Chief Minister Sports Encouragement Scheme), the rewards for Olympic and paralympic gold medallists have been raised from ₹3 crore to ₹7 crore, silver medallists will get ₹5 crore, and bronze medallists ₹3 crore. Asian and Para-Asian Games gold medallists will be given ₹3 crore, silver medallists ₹2 crore and bronze medallists ₹1 crore. For the Commonwealth Games, the awards are ₹2 crore, ₹1.5 crore, and ₹1 crore. For national games, the award is ₹11 lakh. Though encouraging, this news-making spending from one of India’s richest among the states and Union Territories may also be viewed as an attempt at constructive competitive federalism with the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana, where sustained support to sportspeople has yielded notable results in the national and international sports arenas. 

Between them, these two states contributed 15 of India’s 22 medals at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, and 42 of India’s 117-member squad came from these states. At the very least, generous cash awards plus the promise of government jobs represent a belated recognition of the need to treat sports as a viable career option. Together with such central schemes as Khelo India and Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), Delhi now has an adequate level of support for top sportspeople. This spending also reflects the largely unchanged nature of sports funding in India, where taxpayer money and public-sector jobs have sustained India’s leading sportspeople for decades. With exceptions such as cricket or badminton, where successful sportspeople land lucrative endorsement deals to sustain themselves, private corporate-sector funding for Indian sports, which acts as an important supplement to state funding in the West, is relatively thin on the ground. 

It is ironic, however, that Delhi, which has more than its fair share of international-standard sports facilities, thanks to the hosting of an Asian Games and a Commonwealth Games, is a laggard in terms of producing champions. At least part of the Delhi government’s effort, therefore, must be expended in creating an appropriate sports ecosystem and culture as well. This would involve offering better access to the many government-funded sports facilities around the city. Those appear to be monopolised by politicians and bureaucrats, and in one infamous case, a stadium was cleared of athletes to walk a pet dog. Rewarding medal winners is one way of incentivising talented sportspeople to aim higher, faster, and stronger but it will have limited impact in nurturing grassroots talent, especially among talented aspirants from lower-income groups. Haryana has proven a model in managing this process for some decades. The state has produced a wealth of wrestlers, footballers, hockey players, boxers, archers, and cricketers — many of them women — by combining cheap and easily accessible state-funded infrastructure and coaching facilities for aspiring sportspeople in an environment that involves a fair degree of community and familial participation too. To ensure that money is productively spent, Delhi’s sports establishment would do well to study such best-in-class systems first.