Sports Code

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The sports Bodies like the All India Football Federation(AIFF) and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) face potential ban/suspension if elections to the executive body are not done immediately.

What is the Sports Code?

• The Sports Code or National Sports Development Code of India was introduced in 2011 by the Central government.
• Purpose: To introduce good governance practices in the management of sports at the national level without interfering with the autonomy of the national sports bodies.
• The code lays down restrictions on the age and tenure of the office-bearers of federations apart from envisaging transparent functioning along with free and fair elections.

In case of violation of the sports code

• The respective federations can be put under a Committee of Administrators (CoA). That is what happened with the football and hockey association.
• For example, the Supreme Court appointed a three-member CoA led by a former Supreme Court judge to run the AIFF whose president had to resign as continuing in the post would be in violation of the Sports Code as he had been the president for more than 12 years.
• Similarly, the Delhi High Court observed that the Sports Code was violated by Hockey India and a CoA was formed to run the game’s administration in India.

Earlier Instances

• In February, the Delhi High court appointed Gita Mittal as the chairperson of the CoA to run the Table Tennis Federation of India, which was suspended following an inquiry into the match-fixing allegations raised by one of India’s leading players.
• In 2017, the Supreme Court had appointed a CoA to implement the reforms in the administration of cricket in the country suggested by the Justice R.M. Lodha committee.