Special Report – The man who has no imagination has no wings.
As you know that these days parents are admitting their Children’s to different sports activities among them two kind of players exist one are those who just want to peruse the sports just for the physical activities and another set of players have made the sports as a career. These kids those have made sports as career are doing hard work and pursuing the sports in very serious manner. I am playing with these kind of boys, they play tennis daily at least 5 to 6 hrs followed by physical training etc., these boys regularly play ALL India Tennis tournament as well as State level tournaments and get trained from the national level tennis coaches, despite of being from a middle class back ground they are spending huge money for playing tennis at national level.It is very surprising to see that despite of playing at national level and reaching up to quarter finals/ Semi Finals/ Final stage of all India tournaments they are even not getting their travelling expenses, the boys are already spending lot of money on guts, balls, rackets, accessories, cloths, club fees and fees of coach etc. which puts huge burden on the parents. Further to keep the advanced playing level they frequently pay for specialized coaching at national level tennis centers. Moreover no sponsors are available for these national level players/kids and the prize money is miserable even at national level tournaments. And during my entire tennis playing career I have rarely seen any tennis administrator/ organization to garner the sponsor for these young payers and this fact has been confirmed by the current players themselves. Another part of this is when the companies get the publicity thereafter they sponsor the event so the sports administrations/ organizations should bring the crowds towards the events and make the events more popular then they will not be short of sponsors. I congratulate the Board of Control for Cricket in India(BCCI) who made the Cricket a game of masses in last fifty years and became as one of the richest Association of the world; certainly the ultimate beneficiaries of this wealth are the Cricketers who several times brought laurels for the country. On the same line other Associations should also make their sports more popular by engaging more professionals like event managers, Marketing experts, IT expert etc. to their organizations so that their player/events may not be short of sponsors, as already mentioned above the ultimate beneficiaries of these receipts are players. Further we frequently see that when the player become champion and get the media attention then suddenly they get all the benefits of jobs, sponsors and lot of money and become the national hero of our country, that should be done but at the same time just behind the champ there is also a talent who is equally talented and needs some help is overlooked these skilled players also require attention.In the society parents want their child to pursue different field of education so that the career of their child should be secured on the same line career of a sportsmen should also be protected so that more and more children’s shall adopt sports as their career, more participation of individual in the field of sports will definitely produce more champions for the country. The great boxer Muhammad Ali said “The man who has no imagination has no wings”
Report – Tahir Malik
