Sports: For a safe ecosystem | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR

India’s sporting ambitions have never been more visible. Public investment is rising, elite training systems are expanding, and Olympic performance is now seen as a marker of national capability. Yet, even as India builds for excellence, it continues to underinvest in something more fundamental: the safety of its athletes.

A recent disclosure in Parliament, noted that the Sports Authority of India (SAI) alone had received 33 complaints of sexual harassment over the past decade, of which 25 were against coaches. Equally significant was the admission that there is no consolidated national record of such complaints across sports federations, where a substantial share of organised sporting activity actually takes place.

These numbers are not merely administrative details. They point to a deeper structural issue. In sport, where authority is concentrated and careers are precarious, reporting is inherently difficult. The absence of data, therefore, is not evidence of absence; it is often evidence of weak systems.

The challenge, however, extends beyond misconduct. Across disciplines, young athletes are frequently pushed into excessive training loads, resulting in avoidable injuries that curtail careers before they mature. Mental health concerns, burnout, anxiety, and distress remain under-recognised in environments that prioritise resilience but rarely institutionalise support. For many families, particularly those considering competitive pathways for young children, safety remains an unspoken but decisive concern.

India lacks no intent to address these issues. The National Sports Governance Act, 2025 is an important step, establishing principles of athlete welfare, ethical conduct, and safe sport. But the effectiveness of any law depends on its implementation, and here the system remains underdeveloped.

The Act defines responsibilities, but it does not create the operational capability required to deliver them at scale. Federations and institutions are expected to comply, but they are left to interpret, design, and implement safe sport practices largely on their own. This inevitably leads to fragmentation, varying standards, uneven training, and reactive responses once harm has already occurred.

International experience offers a useful contrast. Leading sporting nations have addressed this gap not by expanding government control, but by creating specialised, independent institutions that focus on prevention: training coaches, certifying competence, and auditing compliance in a standardised manner. These institutions do not replace federations or legal mechanisms; they strengthen them by providing a common foundation.

India requires a similar approach.

A National Safe Sports Institute, operating outside government but aligned with public policy, could provide the missing layer of implementation. Its role would not be regulatory or adjudicatory. Instead, it would focus on capability: developing multilingual, digitally

delivered training for coaches and physical education teachers, introducing competency-based certification that tests judgment rather than attendance, and conducting independent audits to assess whether safe sport principles are embedded in everyday practice. A technology backbone would allow this to be done at scale, standardising content across languages, issuing verifiable digital certifications, and creating a national evidence base for compliance

Such an institution would bring consistency. And it would shift the system from a complaint-driven model to a prevention-oriented one.

Importantly, this need not be a large or disruptive intervention. A pilot within the Sports Authority of India given would allow processes to be tested in a controlled environment. From there, the framework could be extended to states that have demonstrated commitment to sports development, and eventually integrated into formal training pathways for future coaches and educators.

Equally important is the question of institutional design. Credibility in this domain depends on independence. A non-governmental structure with appropriate governance safeguards and representation from athletes and domain experts would allow such an institute to operate with both flexibility and trust while remaining aligned with national priorities.

India has, in other sectors, demonstrated the ability to build public-interest institutions that combine scale, standardisation, and autonomy. There is no reason sport should be an exception.

The alternative is to continue relying on fragmented efforts, periodic inquiries, and post-facto accountability. That approach will neither protect athletes effectively nor sustain public confidence in the system.

India’s sporting ambitions are justified. But ambition without safety is fragile. If the country is to build a durable and credible sporting ecosystem, it must invest not only in performance, but in the conditions that make performance possible.

A nation that seeks excellence in sport cannot afford to leave athlete safety to discretion. It must build it into the system deliberately, visibly, and without delay.

GBS Bindra & Rahul Patwardhan

The authors are Distinguished Fellows at the Avinyum Foundation.

Published on June 12, 2026