 Hello and welcome to this news click year end sport special and because it's a festive season I've got with me two guys in studio who you can roll into one great big Cuddly Santa Claus, Weber Wragunandan and Leslie Xavier. Merry Christmas, Ho Ho Ho! Okay, please only invite these guys to be Santa Claus at adults parties. Okay, but on that jovial jolly note it's been an exciting a very busy sporting year. The Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, the Football World Cup, a lot of the Hockey World Cup, a lot of action this year. So how we're going to do this is basically we'll all three of us the news click sports team will discuss a couple of sports stories that were the closest in your mind to the kind of sports journalism that you guys started in your careers wanting to do the most exciting interesting endearing sad whatever it might be right so let me come to you first Leslie. I'll start with the latest actually the one that the big tournament that got over in Bhuvaneshwar the Hockey World Cup. We were looking beyond the stadium we were looking at how the tournament is touching lives not just of the players who are involved in it or the officials or the immediate immediate organizing fraternity but about the volunteers the boys and girls who were there from from the villages from the academies around Orissa were definitely left inspired by the by the tournament and seeing all these players in action about the businesses that flourishes around this thing I'm not talking about the major sponsors as such by the way Odisha State was the sponsor of the World Cup that's something new otherwise the small the flag sellers the jersey sellers the face painters all these things yeah micro around the stadium exactly and obviously the stories related to the World Cup as such how India fared how what the World Cup means for Indian hockey there were a few good written pieces as well how Indian hockey India treats its players badly for instance and and also where the sport is heading that was written by Viber where the sport is heading and I mean how relevant will hockey be in the next 10 years for instance so these are the kind of stories we tried to address and Belgium has announced itself on to the world stage that is something that Viber felt very close about the story of Belgium so maybe you can say I mean it's just I find I find it really endearing Belgium story simply because they started their hockey journey at the same time that Indian hockey got a real reality check 2008 Beijing Olympics Belgium qualified for the Olympics India did not Belgium qualified and said hey you know what we want to win gold two editions later India did not and India said hey you know what we want to win gold two editions later but look who did look who went that way and managed to put their systems in place so in fact one of the things that really came across to me when talking to people at the work of words where Belgian hockey where Indian hockey focuses on developing good making a good team for a tournament Belgian hockey wants to make a good team for the future so they're not training players for a World Cup a Champions Trophy a World League or an Olympics they're training coaches and players who will carry the game forward for as long as you can play I think if you you have to go way back it's it's in 2008 the team qualified for the Beijing Olympics first time in 32 years I think and that's when it all started the funding became the young with the under 16 under 18 under 21 teams we got good coaches we got good training camps and you see that from a young age we started to get the right training and and the guys who are now in this team we played under 18 under 21 and we won medals and you can feel that since 2008 2009 we started just growing growing growing and this team has been together since I think 2012 2013 and you see that now we're growing so fast and it's not over I think that that picture is what we tried to provide while covering it for news click that the sport of hockey and where Indian hockey stand as far as as far as the global game is concerned and how the approach is I mean it's not right in on many counts because ultimately it's not about the results like he mentioned ultimately it's not about a generation or two generation of players ultimately it's it's about setting up a framework for something which the game becomes self-sustaining in in in the country and the talent keeps on coming into the system organically and that's actually a problem with Indian sport as a whole like there is no like way where you constantly are trying to churn out players there is a system in place like take Kabaddi for example for years and years we've had great Kabaddi players who have won us medals at the top accolades of the sport but evidently there have been problems at the grassroot level at the administrative level and this year with India losing gold at the Asian games to Iran that the can of woes yeah that Pandora's box opened up so which leads us I think quite seamlessly into the the next story which is the sport of Kabaddi and a sport that's domestically doing really well because of the introduction of the pro-kabaddi league so in terms of popularity its popularity is growing players are being able to now earn pretty decent living out of playing the sport professionally but below the surface problems everywhere it's pretty cancerous if you if I use about because success on the international stage for the national team is actually very paramount for its popularity and it's I mean we take pride saying that Kabaddi we aren't beaten not anymore and Iran is very close actually and it's not like it was a one-off victory or something like that and then when we news click tried to dwell deeper into the reason why India lost that's when the can of worms open so in the last three four years there have been court cases and all that because at the federation level there there was monopoly of one particular family galore family and they were controlling Kabaddi and they were putting their people on all the state associations and then obviously nepotism and its various versions came up and this particular Asian games teams that the two teams that went to the Asian games when there were a lot of corruption allegation was the court cases for file and what the court decided was to conduct a try because it was too late they decided to conduct a trial or something on that lines after the Asian games trials after no but then it later turned out that the court didn't mean trial so there was a problem with that so it was quite a messy affair and we aware at the ground where these trials were supposed to happen it was at the IG stadium in New Delhi there were a set of players who had come in from the brought in by the guys who filed the original case and they happen to be the new Kabaddi federation of India NKFI that's the name by the way new Kabaddi and they are trying something new for the sport they claim and so the players where they selections never didn't happen the national teams were not I mean obviously they interpreted the courts decision saying that it was not a straight on selection trial or a match between those teams and that which anyways would have been meaningless but there was a lot of confusion and these players went back media buzz was there and then what happens the new Kabaddi federation launches a league of its own so it's it's basically meant for players who are not part of the the existing pro league and it's supposed to actually be a rival to the pro league you know what is happening is that two federations would be fighting each other and then two leagues will come up so the set of players would be barred from by the other federation court cases will happen national team again will go to the stage that it was state that it was before the Asian games and so where does the sport at the pattern that emerges from across all the stories that we've covered in all the various disciplines seems to be that at the top the people who are determining the structure there's a lot of politics corruption money exchanging hands favoritism lack of transparency but then you go to the grassroots level where sport in a way is being played in a in its purest form where usually younger athletes boys girls are playing a sport that they love being trained by a coach who often doesn't take any money for the training he or she is imparting and has set up very basic kind of infrastructure where these kids who otherwise have no real outlet for their energy except going to school and then the usual forms of entertainment electronic media etc etc right so is that would you agree that across all sports it seems to be a pretty similar story that at the grassroots the intentions are good the desire to be engaged with sport is for those reasons of course athletes that are getting involved also want opportunities I mean if they excel then they would like support from the system to encourage them further sure but when they're starting off things are pretty decent so that is encouraging that is not just true for sport I would say like that's true for any form of human-human endeavor at the smallest level it's always noble and very genuine and very nice to see and as soon as there's a little bit of little bit of money involved so the it's it's it's not this money yeah so the thing is that at the smallest level at the grassroots level and we all have been there as a journalist as a part of as part of the system playing the sport so there athletes themselves play for the right reason and the organizers and the coaches and the system around them also do the things for the right reason which is for the sport itself and then as it goes up athletes remain true to that reason because they they want they want glory they want a career out of it which is nothing wrong in it money yeah exactly the reason for the athlete also evolves but it does not evolve at the corruption of their sporting exactly but the people who the people who change are the administrators and that you can't I mean and it's not a so as a case in point let's bring up the story of Satnam Singh who was celebrated a couple of years ago as the first Indian to be picked in the NBA draft by the Dallas Mavericks second round pick 52nd overall but a moment that was like sort of heralded as the coming of age or the Indian basketball becoming the next big thing competing to be the number two viewer viewed sport in the country and then a year after that we found Satnam back home back in his village really frustrated upset and alone feeling quite alone this was like a perfect example of what happens when you herald a guy as the new champion of like I mean these are the kind of stories that movies are made out of you know but in reverse you know it's a nothing guy going and becoming a real big guy the right side is that Satnam's journey was not over so we met him he was obviously training he got a contract with the Canadian League he's gone abroad again he will play he will hopefully come up but the again this takes us back to that systemic problem that you mentioned exactly when you find the guy and when you're trying to build him up into this marketable PR will kind of commodity then he's the best thing ever and then once you feel yeah the minute you realize that he's really not as good as you thought he would be just because he's seven foot two for example in this case because you are competing with other big guys as well to agile and you do know it like I mean you drop him like a hot I mean maybe the system just does not make a place for failure and does not give you an option no this was actually the problem was that they just jumped into it because it was selfish on the part of Satnam's promoter NBA India or the NBA mechanism or the Mavericks themselves because they all are looking into India as a market they are not looking into India as a place where you develop talent and bring Indian basketball up India is a untapped market for NBA for any clubs for that matter that's why in football a lot of academies are established here who hardly turn out players who would go to Europe to play things like that but Satnam's case they portrayed him as a big thing and it was to a large extent fake because he was never seasoned for that yeah and these NBA players they they go through that collegiate system high school system and collegiate system which is highly competitive the NCAA system is is slightly below NBA probably in physicality and all that but otherwise as far as game skill is involved the game time the way the athletes live about their life everything is a is based on that model the athlete would be living when he becomes a professional athlete actually I was also point I just want to point this out also that we're like sitting and talking about how like Satnam's career has gone downhill this and that but he's what 24 no younger oh yeah younger he's I think 22 22 that's why I started as soon as our camera operator yeah wow so that's why that's why he's he's in Canada and hopefully from because he has had experience playing in the D league in the NBA and going through the paces and he understand what to expect and Canadian league is slightly lesser than NBA but competitive nonetheless and from there you can you can come up again probably enter NBA the right way the way it was meant to be develop and take step by step and all that and you don't need any kind of next big thing promotion around him to actually unnecessarily put pressure on him and and I'm sure even you entered his house he would have felt that that signaling feeling that you feel when the athlete is feeling lost yeah pretty much and it's a all other things aside it's a great thing that this kid now has the chance to go back and play fairly competitive basketball on a regular basis if nothing else I mean literally when he was sitting with us all he was asking was for someone to realize that he's there in Baluke village in Spick near Lodhiana and he's been trained in the sport of basketball for several years he he does or knows how to do very little else and he was hoping that someone would use these skills that he has to offer the service that he has to provide and hopefully St. John's Edge which is the team that that he's playing for in Canada will find some utility for him and he'll be able to craft a career so the positive was that this guy at least got a second chance right which now brings me to my sport and what is happening in the iLeague we had great stories we started the year with new champions yeah a brand new second year club that was almost out of the iLeague that went through in it in the season it went through match fixing players getting attracted by bigger clubs new players coming and going but yet managed to do elasticity and beat the Mohan Baghans and the East Bengals and everyone else that was an IZOL FC in the upcoming teams to actually repeat what IZOL had done the previous year you know IZOL was an underdog story I think Minerva has been a Bollywood story two years in a row you had this fantastic sort of dramatic nail biting or not maybe not nail biting but last last match day finish when unexpected club that's come from the ground up is taking the league and we find ourselves now in a situation that we've been talking about for so long for eight years where from the inside the All India Football Federation's commercial partners are not only trying to sabotage but completely destroy this league to ensure that in the years going forward anyone serious about coming into Indian football from the perspective of creating a club and playing at the highest level would go to the Indian Super League the fate would be decided by by by the backers financial backers like you mean to say they don't want two leagues no so the the the entire structure seems now to be driven based on an ownership model where the football federation or the clubs even the clubs themselves have no ownership on the competition at large but the competition is being owned and governed and managed by certain partner entities who are putting up the money and basically they get to decide what happens with this sport now what hopefully what we are all hoping for is that football is known as the people's sport or is a popular sport for a reason and that these clubs some of whom have hundreds of years of history will not take it lying down actually more than the clubs that have hundreds of years of history they'll probably get off by joining the yeah they'll get off on a cheap shot but what what really hurts about killing the i league is that you won't get stories like aizol you won't get stories like neroka also last season and you'll definitely not get a story like real kashmir you know you'll never have a real kashmir playing in isl because there is no one who is in kashmir because arjun kapoor will not go and buy a club there sorry he won't it's just true he'd rather buy a club wherever pune and so that completely changes the dynamic of a football competition and also if you look at stadium attendance uh i league i mean isl is no match for i league uh yeah go not not what they have you believe on you know yeah i mean watch television they have for season for i mean for people who've seen nothing is uh go killum kerala for instance in kori kori the municipal stadium they had close to 60 000 attendance last month in one of their home matches i mean you've been to neroka stadium you've been there for several games it's almost always got at least 50 percent attendance kashmir's first home game was something out of they have to lock the gates uh before the match so that more people don't absolutely and Kolkata people don't care about uh meanwhile meanwhile deli are playing in the isl which stadium as far as the football federation here is concerned and the man running it is concerned it's a very clear case of dismantling as many parts as possible and selling it to his friends and family it's a straight up i mean there is no discussion there's nothing further to it in this apparently the man running the show believes that we will qualify for the 2026 qualifier we are going to win it now winning was asia asian cup we are going to win the asian what your dreams are too little this is what happens when we start talking football it ends up going from a 15 minute show to a half hour very very quickly so we'll curtail it at that um i think the general sentiment like guys to sum up your feelings from 2018 whatever your year covering sport and what you what do you hope for in 2019 i think some of the stories that i most enjoyed doing were related to grassroot sport were related to sport that is usually ignored by mainstream sport and that is perhaps the least depressing way to cover indian sport things like that the beauty of sport so capturing that actually is more gives us gives us a more awesome experience than going to a isl venue in india the problem is that the way things are heading and it's it's there's nothing wrong in commercializing it's it's good for players it's good for the sport but but it is not being done the right way because the the vested interest the control that is being done it's actually killing the charm of mainstream sport too because it's killing sports for the fans it's killing sport for the players it it's definitely it's it has definitely killed sport for the journalists who are covering it and on this great positive note but there are a lot of positives for 2019 let's hope that the indian team does well at the i don't know the reason why we are so jovial even though we are supposedly discussing morose or serious sort of stories that are typical of an indian context 2019 is another year it's a chance for not just football but for several other sports to realize that there is a possibility for people to make money even if you don't cheat everyone else out of it that perhaps if we establish a platform or systems or processes that are more equal then many more can perhaps in the long-term benefit from it whether or not indian sport will do this we'll let you know in 2019 because despite what people want we're not going anywhere so have a great end to 2018 and see you again next year