I used to be one of those cocky athletes who refused to apply for a national/sports award, thinking: “Why should I have to fill up a form and say ‘please’, when everyone saw me winning the Commonwealth Games gold?” It’s not like we have hundreds of World Champions or gold medallists every year. Applying, and not being shortlisted can feel humiliating, especially after climbing the podium.
But when I lost out on one award, to P V Sindhu’s World Championship bronze, I knew I could live with that. A CWG gold is a notch below a World bronze — sportspeople know their exact worth. So when we say we are being disrespected, it isn’t just an everyday rant.
It stings that our post-playing careers as Indian coaches are a second battle to prove our worth. We have to justify to the world that former Indian players, who are turning to coaching, will someday also deserve a remuneration of $12,000 (over Rs 10 lakh) offered to foreign badminton coaches, instead of less than a tenth of that which we get now. Despite reaching world number 6 and being in the top 10 for four years, I had to start from scratch. Now, in the second innings of my career, I work to deliver results and make champions as a coach, like my contemporaries.
Athletes’ pride is a strange thing. And the salary, when compared to corporate successes, can be a punch on the face. In the current state, with the salaries athletes earn and how they are viewed by society, like Pullela Gopichand says, we are snatching away the only thing that they carry with them — immense pride. It’s why he keeps stressing on education as a fall-back for a dignified post-sport career.
We are in no position to tell an Indian player — who has to look after his family, who might’ve come from a middle-class background, and has the responsibility of his/her spouse and children — to say “no” to that basic pay, even if we are training elite shuttlers.
In the gyaan about “so many avenues opening up”, and how former players can “coach, give back to the sport, produce champions, easily”, no one is actually doing the maths of how everything will fall into place. Court rentals, gym equipment, shuttle costs, travel and accommodation costs of non-famous, unfunded players, their support staff — all of it needs money.
So, when Gopichand says that the middle classes should think twice about sports, he has been crunching these numbers for years, making a dozen success stories, keeping the system “happy” and listening to some shoddy arguments. This, while telling me, Saina Nehwal, Sindhu, B Sai Praneeth and Prannoy H S what precise shot to play to win that Super Series or Olympic or World Championship.
There are a handful of Indian coaches who have successfully delivered medals. We need to respect them — champions don’t emerge magically. If you want former players to produce the next generation, you should listen to what they say carefully. When Gopichand says we need exit routes for athletes in academics, and better employment opportunities, he is highlighting a serious issue.
My generation was lucky, we found supportive jobs. Now the next generation is struggling. From Treesa Jolly, a Top 10, to the current junior national champions who used to immediately get stipends a decade ago, the job situation is dire. National champions at 21-23 years old are struggling to land a job, and we are not sure they’ll persist in the sport till 26-27, unless they have financial stability to focus on the game.
Gopi recently said he would be happy if athletes were in a position to reject low-paying PSU jobs, with dead-end prospects in terms of pay. But badminton players are taking up whatever job they get, because of financial desperation.
A young coach at the Hyderabad academy takes three batches from 5 am to 11 am and then rushes to sign off an attendance register at his office. His family background is good, so there’s no financial distress, but he can’t give up the job either.
I was lucky with employers (oil PSU) who granted me promotions after every medal and didn’t force me to come to work. But half-days for active athletes can be spirit-crushing. Badminton is a physically draining sport — post training, you want to lie down, not pore over files. Sleep and recovery impact performance.
I can’t figure out how new-age corporations will accommodate sportspersons, without the requisite skills. Or what use will we be to a software firm or consultancy? But if government jobs are disappearing, the private sector could step up, like every evolved badminton nation. Of course, athletes too should study and earn their spots.
In Japan and Korea, top private sector companies employ top shuttlers. This works because every corporation has a sports club there, and their domestic inter-club leagues are a big deal. The electronics and telecom majors absorb the top international athletes and they earn pretty respectable corporate wages. India neither has a college system like the US, skilling up athletes, nor the new age corporates or start-ups interested in taking them on-board. All Gopi is saying is, in this scenario, athletes should arm themselves with education, so they are not left behind — or at the mercy of officers looking for respect and trying to keep pride intact.
The writer is a retired badminton player
