I am not sure how sports in India or the people of Manipur will benefit from the country’s first national sports university to be set up near Imphal

The Sports Ministry will set up the country’s first national sports university in Manipur, close to Imphal. The Union cabinet approved the ordinance and the President has given his assent earlier this week. This is great news for Manipur, where the young people have very little job opportunities, and many youngsters often take to unfair means to get government jobs.

People have been heard of paying bribes of up to Rs 30 lakh to get jobs. Unemployment is a big problem here. Under the circumstances, a sports university may appear great news.

However, frankly, I am not elated. And I’ll tell you why.

When officials from the sports ministry came here to discuss the plan, I was there and heard the plan in detail. I saw the model, and I was shocked to see that there will be one football ground, one hockey ground among other things. I can only talk about football because being a footballer that’s my main concern. How can a sports university have one football ground? When I was 19 years old, I was playing for the national team and I went to Keele University, three hours’ drive from London and there were 10 football grounds there. Perhaps one should not expect so many football grounds in one university in our country where sports infrastructure is so poor in the first place, but isn’t one football ground and one hockey ground for the first national sports university in the country too little too late?

Recently, I went to an international school near Gurugram and even a private school had two football grounds and two hockey grounds.

A lot of people seem quite excited about the news of a sports university in India, but what I have just mentioned is the sad reality. Even the Sports Authority of India in Kolkata has three football grounds and it’s not even a university.

The place where the sports university will be set up near Imphal, is just a ten minutes drive from my house. It’s a beautiful place set against the mountains. The local people who have parted with their land for the university are looking forward to getting jobs, there are many here in Manipur who hope they will have a bright future because of the university. But I cannot be happy about it, because even as a lot of money is being spent on the project, I am not sure how much the local people or Indian sports will actually benefit from it.

[The views expressed belong solely to the author, and may not reflect the opinions of the editorial team]

Cover photograph: Renedy Singh at the proposed site for the national sports university near Imphal.