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Raining rewards for cricket: Is it fair?
By Binu Paul, SiliconIndia
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Saturday, 09 April 2011, 14:09 IST |
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1 crore award for each player, which was followed by several state governments announcing huge cash as well as respective state awards. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit announced an award of Rs two crore for Captain M S Dhoni and Rs one crore each for four Delhi players. This was followed shortly by Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chauhan announcing Rs one crore award each for Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan. Punjab government was also quick in announcing its cash award of Rs one crore each for Harbhajan Singh and Yuvraj Singh. While Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa announced a residential plot in Bangalore for each members of the winning squad, his Uttarakhand counterpart Ramesh Pokhrayal Nishank promised a residential plot or a house in Mussoorie hill station for Dhoni and Sachin Tendulkar. Jharkhand Government said it would give a plot of land to Dhoni to set up a cricket academy in the state. Yousuf Pathan and Munaf Patel will be conferred with Rs one lakh and a citation for each by the Gujarat government. Above all, one should not forget that MS Dhoni and his boys kissed the cup along with a cheque of about Rs 8.5 crore ($1.9 million).
The call for bestowing Bharat Ratna on Sachin Tendulkar is echoing across the country after its World Cup victory. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhrayal Nishank announced that a stadium will be built in the state to be named after Dhoni. Gujarat Government announced its highest sports honour Eklavya Award for Yousuf Pathan and Munaf Patel. Announcing its decision to institute "Best Sportsperson of the Year award" from this year, Haryana government said it will honour Sehwag and Nehra with the state's best sportsperson of the year award. The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to felicitate Suresh Raina and Piyush Chawla with Kanshiram International Sports award. Dhoni has been made an honorary officer - a lieutenant-colonel - in the Indian army.
Kingfisher Airlines promised a lifetime of free travel on domestic and international flights for all the team members with their wives and children. A prominent property company has offered the whole team with homes worth a total of $1.2 Million in a satellite town of Delhi.
The Indian Railway has offered the winning players and their families a lifetime free travel in first class air-conditioned cabins.
With the World Cup victory, the brand value of the team has reached new heights and the leading players are sure to benefit immensely from their new market status. Experts feel that the endorsement fee charged by players will definitely be up least 20 percent or so and the number of brands endorsed will increase. As companies vie for endorsements, batsmen like Yuvraj Singh and Gautam Gambhir may see a 30 percent jump in earnings.
However, its high time that the central as well as the state governments need to contemplate on how fair they treat the other sports personalities. Ashwini Chidananda Shetty Akkunji who won the 400M hurdles gold at the Asian Games and the six-time World billiards champion Pankaj Advani were promised BDA sites but are made to endure a frustrating wait. Similarly, numerous talented sports personalities in tennis, chess, badminton, boxing, and several other athletics would have reached higher levels of success if proper support and encouragement would have reached them at the right time. Let's hope that the governments will take the needful initiatives to kick start an overall development of all kinds of sports in India.