October 3, 2010

October 3, 2010 is an important date for both the countries that I belong to - Germany and India. While Germany celebrate their 20th anniversary of reunification, for India it is the day that the 2010 Commonwealth Games will be inaugurated in New Delhi.

20 years ago Germans were celebrating the day that many feared would never come that the divided country would come together and be one nation again. Today Germany celebrates 20 years of being unified again and the country has gone through tough times as especially the East Germans, who were used to living in a totalitarian regime, had to adjust to the open market economy. The unified Germany has come a long way, but still steps are too be taken to make west and east equal.

For India the Commonwealth Games were supposed to make a statement that we have arrived on the world sporting stage! But especially the last month has been mainly negative news of construction delay, corruption, security concerns, a bridge collapse, a terrorist attack, an unhygienic games village, etc. And surely India could have done a better job had the concerned authorities not woken-up so late to all these problems.

But now the games are set to kick-off, so lets welcome the foreign athletes and support the Indians ones. Now it is over to sports as the Olympic saying of "participation is the biggest thing" holds key once more. India has to show itself in the best possible way despite all the problems.

And hopefully after the games there will be a big retrospection of how things were organised and run at the games. The Supreme Court has already said that it will look into matters of funding and other issues after the games. India quickly needs to learn from what all went wrong and rectify those mistakes. The key one surely is that government agencies need to hand over the organisation of such mega sporting events to professionals who understand all aspects involved. And then surely India will be able to bid for Asian Games and Olympics...

Delhi's security a nightmare

Sorry for no blog entries in the last few days. I have flown down to India to be part of the FICCI Sports Summit 'Turf 2010' here in New Delhi, so have been out all day.

And you feel the tension in town ahead of the big sporting event. We are only a day, actually hours away from the opening of the 2010 Commonwealth Games and New Delhi is on high alert. This is something very normal when such a high profile event is about to take place, but some aspects of the security set-up and implementation can only be termed ridiculous. And that is to say the least. I might be wrong, but sometimes I feel more insecure then secure, which I doubt is the intention of the security services. And if I as a half-India/half-German feel so, I bet many of the foreigners in town will feel it even more...

Certain hotels have been closed off completely for the public, only persons having a CWG2010 access card can enter such hotels. Now if this is the case then no normal guests should be allowed to stay there and only CWG2010 contingents, media, etc should stay at such hotels to avoid hassles for people.

I give you a simple example of what happened to me. I on Thursday evening wanted to meet my aunt, who was down in Delhi at her hotel and have dinner with her. I went to the hotel and said at the main entrance I came to the hotel to meet my aunt, have dinner, and go back to my own hotel. Nothing more and nothing less. Without the necessary pass I was not allowed to enter and we then tried the hotel next door, there the same issue. Due to security matters we weren't allowed in without such a CWG2010 pass. It ended with me going back to my own hotel, having my food there and my aunt eating at her hotel. We meet after about a year so it would have been nice to eat and chat, but due to the Commonwealth Games it wasn't to be.

2010 Commonwealth Games: India's nightmare

I had written a blog entry on August 5 with the headline "2010 Commonwealth Games: A disaster waiting to happen?" and now it sadly seems to becoming a reality. I remember a couple of month's back friends back in New Delhi who are involved with the Commonwealth Games told me, don't worry we have numerous problems which aren't public, but we will sort them out. It sounded to me typically Indian not to worry about problems which are weeks away, then we will take care of them in the final hour.

Now it seems this approach, large scale corruption, mismanagement, bureaucracy and the ambition to compete with China on the global sporting stage could haunt New Delhi and the first-ever Commonwealth Games on Indian soil. Things seem to be so bad that the CWG committee could consider calling off or postponing the games. And that would be a disaster and a national shame for India plus a major blow to the Commonwealth Games and its future.

Now the only issue is to salvage the situation. The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself has gotten involved, way too late, but he realises that the aftershocks will surely hit the brand India, his UPA government and the local Congress government in Delhi. The Commonwealth Games were envisaged to announce India's arrival on the global sporting stage, now it seems it could highlight India isn't ready for something so big. Hopefully the organisers of the 2011 Cricket World Cup and the Formula 1 India Grand Prix will learn their lessons. Luckily they are mainly privately organised and run, so will not face most of these problems.

But there is one thing will annoys me. Especially Australia, New Zealand and England seem to stress on the danger of terror. I was in Delhi a few days back and it was fully safe. Actually there are many more checks then we are used to in Europe. It seems to me that some nations have been looking for reasons to try and stay away, so terror fears seem to have been the best bet. Luckily for them they have found other legitimate reasons in accommodation, crumbling infrastructure, monsoons and dengue. What would they be doing otherwise...

But an Indian failure will not only have implications for our country, but for emerging nations in general. Especially Brazil will now come under the radar as the South Americans are set to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Stadia construction and redevelopment are already delayed, which will come under much higher scrutiny following the examples of New Delhi. And developing nations bidding for large scale international sporting events will have their problems as sporting bodies might now go with the safe bets to ensure successful tournaments and games.

Take e.g. the 2018 FIFA World Cup, England's bid to host could gain more international support as questions over Russia's capabilities will now rise. Especially after their handling of the catastrophic bush fires this summer. India is not only harming itself, but emerging nations in general.

My only hope is now that India can somehow pull it off and not embarrass itself completely and the people behind all this chaos are taken to task. I know that is a big ask, but lets see if anything happens...

2010 Commonwealth Games: A disaster waiting to happen?

The 2010 Commonwealth Games to be hosted in the Indian capital New Delhi are just under two month's away and the problems seem to be getting bigger and bigger by the day. This isn't anything special for a city, a country hosting a major international sporting event but at the moment things seem to be getting out of control in India. For India hosting the Commonwealth Games is the biggest sporting event our country has ever hosted and also this is supposed to mark our entry into the world of sporting hosts with Asian Games, Olympics and a football World Cup down the road in the next decades. A failure in October 2010 could throw us back by a decade or more even with our economic rise.

But where are the problems? If one looks at the media reports there are to many to mention. Allegations of corruption, venues aren't ready yet while some are already crumbling under monsoon rains plus officials and politicians fighting each other over who should get the credit for things going well or who should be blamed for failure and mismanagement. And to top it all there is former sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar who is wishing the worst for the games so that the inabilities of certain sports administrators are exposed. That wouldn't be the worst only if India's interest weren't harmed in the process. This all sounds like a real life soap opera. And a really bad one.

The question I ask myself is India ready to host such an international mega-sporting event? I have been of the opinion, we will have problems but will manage to get everything in place in the last minute, but the closer the Commonwealth are getting the more doubts I now have. And I don't seem to be alone with my doubts as yesterday's statements from Baichung Bhutia show.

Baichung said in Kolkata, "We should not have taken a decision to host the Games. The infrastructure is not ready. Look at the situation, the grounds are not ready. Even in hockey, there are not many turfs in India. Even a nation like Malaysia is better-placed to host the Games. We should not have bid for the Games."

Harsh words from Baichung but he is known to speak his mind on pressing issues and not to take a diplomatic view just to please others. And in my opinion his views are spot on!
Instead of hosting the Commonwealth Games now, maybe hosting it in four or eight years would have been better. The funds would have been better utilised to create infrastructure now for youngsters to train and increase the participation in sports. That is India's biggest drawbacks besides qualified coaching and a system for overall sports development, irrespective of sporting discipline. And we also need young, dynamic people to come in and run sporting bodies to bring with them fresh, new ideas and not age old methods which don't seen to take us anywhere.

But still I hope the Commonwealth Games will be a success, but thereafter an overall clean-up needs to happen. Especially the media needs to ask for accountability and those found guilty for offences need to be pushed. But for now India and I mean the whole of India needs to focus on making the Games a success or otherwise our reputation will take a massive hit.