| Sports administration is tough, but system must be cleaned up: Purav Raja | | | Early Times Report
NEW DELHI, May 28: Former India doubles player Purav Raja says Indian tennis administration needs a complete clean-up with accountability and transparency "from the bottom", but admits that sports administration is such a tough field that he is unsure whether he himself has the capacity to take it up.
Raja, along with former Davis Cupper Somdev Devvarman, had challenged the 2024 elections of the All India Tennis Association (AITA), leading to the appointment of former Chief Justice Geeta Mittal as administrator to oversee the federation's functioning and align its constitution with the National Sports Governance Act, 2025 before conducting fresh elections.
"The system has to be run professionally. I am not sure about my capacity for this. Sports administration is a tough field," Raja told PTI in an interview.
"We didn't file this petition because we wanted to take over (AITA). Whoever is in charge should be elected in a fair and constitutional manner. My contribution is that, for the first time, we got somebody to oversee things and reform the bylaws," he said
Raja, however, insisted that Indian tennis administration suffers from deep-rooted structural issues beginning at the district level and called for a complete financial clean-up of the system.
"First and foremost, we need to clean up the system. We need to adhere to the administrator and make it very systematic and transparent," he said.
"Let's do financial audits on every state, on DLTA, on AITA Trust and on AITA itself. Let's get a professional firm to do audits in every state. Maybe nothing is fishy and everything is completely clean, but at least we will know where the money is being allocated."
Raja said transparency alone would help remove suspicion and improve governance. |
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