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Reward those out of limelight
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While substantial rewards are given today for performing sportspersons, it would help if those in their years of decline are feted and a fund set up for their needs, writes ABHIJIT SEN GUPTA.
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THERE HAS been a flood of good performances from Indian sportspersons and Indian teams in various competitions in recent times.
Although India is still a long way from becoming a dominant force, there are definite and encouraging signs of improvement in several disciplines.
Thanks to the performances of the Indian junior volleyball team, the Indian hockey team, the archers, junior chess players and wrestlers, Sania Mirza and East Bengal football club, - to name a few of the outstanding examples, that sports lovers in the country can have something to cheer about.
Another favourable aspect is that by and large, these good performances have not gone unrewarded.
Barring some exceptions most individual players and teams, which achieve some degree of excellence at international level do end up getting substantial monetary rewards for their efforts.
Frequently even offers of lucrative jobs are being made to them and on the financial front, usually they do not have much to worry about.
One of the latest examples has been the noteworthy feat of Sania Mirza who won the girls doubles title at the Wimbledon championships with Russian Alisa Kleybanova as her partner.
About three years ago when weightlifter Karnam Malleswari bagged a bronze medal at the Sydney Olympics she received unprecedented adulation, publicity, financial rewards and sponsorship from various quarters.
At the time her Russian coach L. Taranenko is said to have remarked that in his country even gold medallists were not given as much!
All this is a welcome change in attitude of sports administrators, sponsors and the State and Central governments. Players who sacrifice their time, energy and financial resources to obtain honours at the international level deserve everything that they are given in return for their extraordinary feats.
But at the same time some thought should be given to the sports heroes of the past - particularly those who were not so fortunate enough to have made a good earning from their sport.
They lived in different times, and their deeds, while attracting attention and fame in their days, did not do much to bring about any change in their financial status and security.
Perhaps the sponsors, governments and administrators did not have the same attitude then as they do now.Several sportspersons who were idols of sports fields during the Fifties and Sixties are now barely able to eke out a living and some of them have to fight alone, against failing health and financial difficulties.
Surely when so much is being done for the sports heroes of the present, something could also be done for those who belonged to a different era when the strict ideals of amateurism prevented the players from getting adequate financial rewards for all their efforts and accomplishments.
While there are plenty of such cases of neglected former sportspersons throughout India, the most recent instances that have come to notice in Hyderabad are those of former Olympian footballer Yousuf Khan, who is just one of the many football legends from the city, now facing difficulties.
Yousuf Khan, now 67, was considered one of the best mid-fielders in India and represented the country in the Rome Olympics in 1960.
He was particularly good in heading the ball which he could do with pinpoint accuracy.
But now as a result of those frequent knocks on the head, he is suffering from Parkinson's disease and has difficulty in meeting his medical expenses.
Then there is the case of Susai (Jr), one of the members of the unbeatable Hyderabad team, which dominated the national scene in the 1950's.
He, too, is in dire straits. Noor Mohammed, a member of the famous Indian team trained by the incomparable Rahim, who came fourth in the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, died in penury a couple of years ago.
Many more internationals are languishing in the small lanes and by-lanes of Hyderabad and whiling away their last days in distress.
In these days when so much is made available for sports stars of the present, the greats of the past should not be forgotten, particularly in their hour of need.
All it needs is for the government or any sports-loving organisation to set up a trust fund to take care of the former greats.
It is very likely that even the present day players who receive so much, would be happy to contribute some of their earnings to such a fund - so that in their years of decline, players of the past who had done the country proud earlier, do not feel that their countrymen have let them down now.
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