Pullela Gopichand: 'Bring legislation to free sportspersons from politicians, bureaucrats'

National chief coach Pullela Gopichand said sports should be run by professional and sports persons, not politicians and bureaucrats. The former All England Open champion also advocated for a law to be enacted in this regard to make the running of Indian sports administration seamless.

Gopichand, who recently oversaw the Indian women's team's historic Badminton Asia Team Championships title-winning triumph in Shah Alam, Malaysia, said, "One legislation, I would really love to see is the government telling that we (sportspersons) are not under bureaucrats, sports administration is not under politicians. But sports are managed by professionals and people who know stuff and who are sportspersons. That, from a legislation point I would really want to see."

Gopichand also advocated for an ecosystem where an athlete could just focus on his training and performance while the allied things should be taken care of by the administration.

“From policy makers, there are two things that are important. For performance, there are too many people involved, there are the (sports) associations, government, private parties, managers; there’s a whole of ecosystem," said Gopichand while speaking at an event called ‘News9 Global Summit’ on Sunday.

“So, I think that needs to be streamlined. Because on one side is the corporate and marketing side, the entire ecosystem of very different things. But performance is a purely different ball game," added the 50-year-old

“It needs a set of people who are really committed, whether it’s players, coaches and support staff and an ecosystem which builds performance. We need to keep that isolated from the rest of it. So, I would really say ‘boss get this done for us (athletes)’,” Gopichand suggested.