BANGALORE, JULY 30: Badminton Association of India (BAI) executive president Prakash Padukone strongly favoured the appointment of professional managers for improving sports management in the country.``As a first step towards professionalism, we should accept the idea of appointing professional managers. The centre had mooted a proposal to appoint full-time managers for each federation, but none of the federations accepted the proposal,'' he lamented.Under the proposal the centre would bear the salary of the manager and the federations would have no additional burden. ``If they want to send another person for foreign trips, they could still do it. As of now they are sending one person along with the team,'' he added.Padukone said appointment of a professional manager would have been beneficial as he would have taken care of management problems leaving the players concentrate on their games. Of course, the government might impose conditions while agreeing for the proposal, he added.Padukone, who has been successfully running the BPL Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy for nearly five years, said in England badminton had a public limited company to manage the game. The Badminton Association of England Ltd had 25 staff and separate managers for marketing, events, coaching and development and all of them report to the chief executive officer.Asked whether the BAI would try a similar experiment in the country, he said ``we are not ready for corporatisation. Finances are a problem''. Besides, the state association might not accept the idea, he added.
