Governance of Sports Bodies in India: A Critical Legal Study

Abstract

This research revolves around the issue of the Governance of the Sports Bodies in India and critically analyses it from the legal perspective. The research aims to highlight the importance of the governance in modern sports and how good governance could help in overall development of the sports. The research mainly revolves around the aspect of problems of governance in Indian sports associations and in doing so it brings up the aspect of lack of transparency and accountability, irregularity in the elections, mismanagement of funds, control of political figures in these associations and how it has impacted India‟s performance on the field as well. In subsequent chapters the new era problems like Doping, Match fixing, and Broadcast regarding problems have been taken up to highlight the gravity of these problems. The research does not highlight the problem but also explores the solution of the problem that it discusses extensively over the course of first four chapters. The research also analyses Lodha Committee report which was formed by the Supreme Court of the country to reform the governance of India‟s richest and most powerful sports organisation, The BCCI (The Board of Control for Cricket in India). The main purpose was to support the argument which this research points out as the report of Lodha Committee also echoed that governance system of BCCI needed to be reformed and there was need to have system of accountability, proper and clean elections, audit, and other essential aspects of good governance. This research uses this report to strengthen its argument that governing structure of other sports bodies shall also be reformed. The research also explores the possibility of having a comprehensive Sports law in the country and for the same it has undertaken survey to assess the culture of sports prevalent in Indian educational institutions. Chapter Seven of the research is completely dedicated to the Sports Legislation which has been prepared after going through the current problems faced by Indian Sports sector. The proposed bill known as Sports Law Bill 2021 is an attempt to propose a Sports Legislation for the regulation of Sports in India.