Kickbacks play spoilsport at Games

If it was Lalit Modi at the beginning of the year, the latter part certainly belonged to Suresh Kalmadi. Certainly, it is turning out to be the watershed year in the history of corruption in Indian sport.

During a light-hearted banter the other day, a colleague of mine played the Devil's advocate when he said given the mess that the Commonwealth Games (CWG) finds itself in, what harm had Modi done? At least, he had always delivered and never floundered on deadlines.

Irrefutable logic, one may say — given the chalta hai (anything goes) mindset of the Indians. With corruption very much a constant in all walks of life, the tendency is now to look for the ‘lesser evil' — be it politics, bureaucracy and now sport.

Cutting deals

It would be naïve to assume that the world of kickbacks or false tenders did not exist in sport before. During late '90s, the then cricket czar Jagmohan Dalmiya was accused of manipulating TV deals, there was always the murmur as to how the former All India Football Federation (AIFF) President Priya Ranjan Das Munshi ran the body like his fiefdom and made money out of it — the list only goes on.

With time, the volume of money changing hands seems to have increased by leaps and bounds while another theory is with the media becoming a much bigger force to reckon with — it's become difficult for the wheeler dealers to keep such things under wraps.

However, India — who were not half the global power that they are today — still conducted several world class events over the '80s and '90s with resounding success.

If it was Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's drive which saw New Delhi hosting the '82 Asiad, the country took the first giant strides towards becoming a global cricketing power when it hosted two cricket World Cups in '87 and '96.

Sensing that it's all spiralling out of control (and the Opposition party making most of it), the government has now woken up to the crisis. It, however, plans to keep any form of punitive action against Kalmadi and company on hold till the Games are over so as the country's prestige is not at stake.

However, if all goes well, will the charges against Kalmadi die down?

We will wait and watch!