Senior Congress leader Niranjan Patnaik has urged Union Minister of State for Sports Jitendra Singh to introduce the Sports Bill in Parliament urgently and hand over the management of the sports to professional managers to stop the rot from spreading.
Expressing concern over politicisation of sports which has affected excellence, Patnaik asked for immediate steps to delink sports from politics.
The Government should not allow a sports body to become powerful enough to flout legal principles, Patnaik said in a letter to Singh and added that there should be greater devolution in revenue sharing by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) with the State and district associations.
Alleging that BCCI has become a behemoth, a monopoly of the kind which does not exist in any sport in any country, Patnaik said the Centre should stop this by legislation. Taking a dig at the political class for opposing the Sports Bill, the former president of the Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) said age and tenure restrictions of the office-bearers should be part of the Bill. He also suggested that 50 per cent of the office-bearers should represent the sports at the district level.
Stating that there should be clear definition of conflict of interest, Patnaik said owners of IPL clubs cannot be regulators as well.
Expressing happiness over the fact that changes are being made to deal with spot fixing, Patnaik said the cricket community which was aware of the menace should have suggested necessary legislative changes long back.