The enactment of the National Sports Governance Act, 2025 is a milestone in India’s ongoing effort to modernise sports administration. Over the years, multiple frameworks—the 1984 Sports Policy, the 2011 Sports Code, and the 2017 draft Good Governance Code—have sought to address recurring challenges of transparency, tenure limits, and dispute resolution. The 2025 Act consolidates these strands by establishing a National Sports Tribunal, streamlining elections through a central Election Panel, and starting the set up of financial accountability for federations that draw on public funds. Yet, critical gaps remain. Some parliamentarians in the Opposition have asked for creation of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to scrutinise the bill, as it has major repercussions for different sports bodies “in view of their national importance”. Discussing what committees bring to the table, what they leave out, and how the path of sports governance now looks ahead, is an important entry point to understanding the bill.
The bill has directed the setting up of a National Sports Election Panel, with its members likely to be the retired Chief Election Commissioner, Deputy Election Commissioner, or retired State Election commissioners. This is to ensure smooth conduct of elections in the different committees of NSFs (National Sports Federations). The bill also mentions the setting up of an internal election governing body for each NSF, to guarantee that elections are regularly and rightfully conducted. This overarching system establishes the first step towards accountability of the internal committees. The bill also reduces the term required to be served before being eligible for office bearer positions in NSFs; the requirement of 2 terms in executive committee has been relaxed to 1. This is done to promote “younger administrators and athlete-leaders” (The Hindu Bureau, 2025). Promoting younger people in the top positions is an encouraging initiative. But, parallelly, the Bill allows for persons aged between 70–75 to also contest elections, subject to the bye-laws and the international rules of that NSF permit. Capping of age limits is a strategy that could have the reduction of required terms to 1. The infestation and tendency of boards to be nepotistic is another possibility that can dampen accountability or democratic functioning. The 2017 Draft of National Code for Good Governance in Sports, taking this into account, had barred immediate relatives to be on the board of an NSF at any time when one was serving a term. It had, in fact, also mandated that no minister, MP, or MLA could be board member or office bearer.
The 2025 Act says that an ethics committee must be formed by each of the National Sports Bodies, leaving the setting of the minimum standard of functioning of members of that sports body to the ethics committee. A few general pointers on overarching ethical guidelines could have been a useful addition in the Act, and would not have left too much to interpretation. An overarching committee, an umbrella body of the different ethics committees, is also worth considering. Such a committee could have been crucial for overseeing the setup of standard bye-laws. It could also have served as the central body for reviewing and updating the mechanisms of all ethics committees based on changes in international regulations, repercussions of other laws or judgements that could be taken into account.
The protesting wrestlers at Jantar Mantar were a piercing reminder of the large cesspool of sports cases logged in court. According to an Indian Express report, in the last 10 years, close to 770 lawsuits related to sports disputes have been filed (Vasavada, 2025). Pitted against these stands the Tribunal, a body vested with judicial intent and gusto. Its immediate task in the Act is to take on all cases of pending sports disputes. Wherever National Sports Bodies are a party, the case shall be transferred to the tribunal, a fast track civil court for sports disputes in effect. It shall contain all powers resting within the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908. The Act calls for a functional process within NSFs that is ‘fair, timely and transparent’ (Ministry of Law and Justice,2025). Despite this, the Act does not mandate a fleshed out mechanism of the internal grievance redressal committee at the NSF level, as well as the setting up of such committees at the state and district levels. The first interaction of an athlete with the grievance redressal order is going to be this internal mechanism. For all the cases to come to the fore, potential cases to not be sabotaged, and the athlete to not grapple with insecurities of taking on big figures, a strong internal mechanism is critical.
The transit of a grievance can elevate the mechanism. The Act, while listing what the tribunal cannot do, makes it explicit that it can not adjudicate on matters being dealt by the internal dispute resolution committees of an NSF. Establishing an escalation ladder around the transferring of cases from these internal dispute resolution committees to The Tribunal could have been an important link in strengthening the mechanism for athletes. The process of setting up the Tribunal through a Search-cum Selection Panel , their status as public servants and clear guidelines on their related removal are important steps that ensure that the accountability framework has not been overlooked.
Audit and Accountability
The law makes the finances of NSFs liable to audit by the Comptroller General of India (CAG). A formal stride in making sports bodies financially accountable and its unprecedented symbolism is essential. However any fixed period for auditing the accounts has not been defined. But once an audit has been ordered the audit reports of every year must travel—first to the CAG, then to the Central government, and eventually to the Parliament. It is crucial that these reports, whenever applicable, be discussed well in the parliament. Public representatives debating the reports could potentially introduce novel ways of maintaining the financial accountability of NSFs.
A Draft of the 2017 bill extended the scope of financial accountability. It mandated the publishing of annual audited balance sheets and profit loss statements on its website. A costless access to the financial accounts of governing bodies of the fervour-inspiring sports, would have been a sweeping move towards public accountability of NSFs. The 2017 bill had in fact also mandated publishing of the NSFs’ constitution and its bye-laws. A more pronounced attempt at transparency does have strong precedents in the sports governance through bills approach and drawing on them could be useful to strengthen transparency going forward.
Player representation
Voicing athlete concerns and putting them to the fore has been addressed by the bill. Each NSF is to create an Athletics Committee that is supposed to take up such issues. The bill, however, does not mention any specific guidelines or some standard players-related issues that this committee should focus on. The 2017 bill proposed, too, the formation of the Athletics commission and it laid down the specific functions of it. It was to work with the NSF and the National Olympic Committee (NOC) to represent athlete views to such sports bodies, ensure board related mandates, and regulations were clearly communicated to athletes and promote ‘clean athletes on and off the field of play’. It also laid down a right for athletes of that particular sport the right to vote for representatives to the commission. Spelling out such specificities for the athletics committees of NSFs could be a next step in ensuring a real chance at player voice in decision making or matters of sports governance.
Conflict of Interest
Conflict of Interest has been a contentious issue with regards to office bearers of sports bodies. In the Indian context , it had come to the fore with the Supreme Court appointed Lodha Committee that was set up to understand the functioning and structure of BCCI, and suggest reform. One of the major issues it had raised was that office bearers had been in positions which could compromise or bring under question their position as office bearers of the sports body. The 2017 Bill seemed to have a mandate on it too. It prescribed adoption of a clear conflict of interest policy for office bearers, Board Members, committees, employees, staff, vendors, partners, sponsors, coaches, athletes, officials, Members, Affiliates. It further added that both direct and indirect interests must be considered, clearly stating that it should be ensured there is neither ‘real or apparent conflict of interest’ (Draft National Code for Good Governance in Sports, 2017). The plan of action it suggested for dealing with conflict was that in certain cases it could be resolved through disclosure and in other instances it would require the person to be removed from one of the positions. The 2025 bill not having any points around conflict of interest therefore remains a deep curiosity.
The BCCI has been remembered in relation to the current act for another reason. When specifying which entity would fall in the ambit of Right to Information(RTI), the current bill marks only those organisations as public authority which receive grants from the government. Financially independent boards like the BCCI would therefore not be in the realm of the RTI, famously touted as the richest cricket board in the world, which corners a huge chunk of the international cricket revenue. Transparency on utilisation of these funds, the internal governance structure, the nature of voting and elections are all important things which the ‘cricket delirious’ India has no clue about. The bill had the power to change that but in the current version, with the definition of public authority being contingent on the NSF securing grants, it misses out .
Conclusion
The 2025 act is able to put in place formalised committees which can very easily be the node of a particular specificity, but it misses out on governance nuances that could have tightened structures and designs. Drawing from certain propositions of the 2017 Draft of the Good Governance Bill can make the bill have a more pronounced focus on transparency and aid in raising athletes’ voices.
A big achievement of the current bill is that it has been able to get all ‘stakeholders’—the different boards governing different sports—to largely collectively agree on things. Previous attempts, such as the one in 2017, were unable to envision this. The focus of the bill seems to be around elite athletes management. ‘Welfare of sportspersons’ is a directive of the bill by its own admission in its first lines. Specific plans of action on building state-backed sports capacity seem missing from the bill and the discourse around it.
The bill does mandate creation of a Safe Sports Policy, also keeping in mind minors. But any layout or verbalisation of the same seems to be missing. A focus on distributional aspects of NSF funds or revenue and increasing accessibility of sports are key components of welfare. Tackling these questions is crucial at this juncture. Partnerships with private entities has become an increasingly common route of achieving certain things related to elite athletes across sports. What aspects of it are to be brought under governance, and in what form, is an essential territory yet to be uncovered in the bill. Standing at a point that is witnessing fresh attempts of formalisation in governance of sports, it would be amiss if these crucial aspects of welfare are not embedded in the discourse and enactment of sports governance. To begin with, these aspects could be tabled for discussion in the parliament.
