The Hard Law(unch) of Indian Sporting Governance

The National Sports Governance Act, 2025 (“NSG Act”) was enacted in August 2025. This statute marks a significant departure from India’s reliance on non-binding executive instructions and policy guidelines, such as the National Sports Development Code of 2011, which was previously disregarded by sporting federations without much consequence.

The NSG Act establishes binding legal obligations which defines the powers, responsibilities and accountability across all levels of sports administration. As per the long title of the Act, its purpose is to provide for the development of sports in India, promote transparency and prevent sporting fraud. It would be difficult not to mention the elephant in the room, i.e., India’s plea to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games as well as the 2036 Olympics.

The absence of a specialised domestic forum for sports disputes has historically pushed athletes and federations into constitutional courts. In Sushil Kumar v. Union of India, the Delhi High Court refused to interfere with the Wrestling Federation of India’s decision to nominate Narsingh Yadav for the Rio Olympics. The Indian judicial approach has always been that of deferring to federation autonomy in selection matters, and intervening only when decisions are shown to be arbitrary prima facie. The Yadav controversy, among many other such examples, is an illustration of disputes being escalated internationally to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (“CAS”), ultimately magnifying India’s dependence on international adjudicatory forums in the absence of a structured domestic sports tribunal.

Core of the NSG Act

The Act establishes a formal structural bifurcation between the National Sports Board (“NSB”), the National Olympic Committee, the National Paralympic Committee, National Sports Federations (“NSFs”) and Regional Sports Federations (“RSFs”) for each designated sport. Ultimately, this aids in managing sport-specific governance at all grassroot, state and central levels. Under this codified system, recognized sports organizations receiving government funding are classified as public authorities under the Right to Information Act, 2005, thereby being subject to mandatory audits by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Furthermore, the Act imposes strict requirements within these institutions, which requires them to maintain internal committees for governance, ethics, athlete representation and dispute resolution.

The recently notified tripartite Rules under the NSG Act are:

1.     National Sports Governance (National Sports Bodies) Rules, 2025, which provides the governance structure and election procedures within recognised National Sports Bodies.

2.     National Sports Governance (National Sports Tribunal) Rules, 2025, which establishes the administrative and operational framework for the National Sports Tribunal (“NST”), a specialized dispute resolution forum created by the Act.

3.     National Sports Governance (National Sports Board) Rules, 2025, which governs the constitution, appointment, service and functions of the National Sports Board, an institution that is garnered as the apex regulatory body under the NSG Act.

A codified approach to sports governance ensures accountability, thereby balancing the protection of athlete welfare with the implementation of protocols for funding and official recognition. However, a policy question remains on how well the Act is designed in practice – in the sense, how it combines regulatory oversight with federation autonomy, voicing athletes’ rights and creating a solid dispute resolution forum. The following section presents a comparative note cross examining three jurisdictions – the United Kingdom, Australia and France, in order to calibrate India’s bold strides within the sporting governance environment.

Cross-Jurisdictional Analysis

The United Kingdom relies on its Code for Sports Governance, which sets out pre-conditions for public funding, board composition, conflict of interest, transparency and financial controls, whereby non-adherence to the Code risks suspension of funding. This trade-off incentivises sports federations to reform while leaving room for autonomy. Comparatively, India’s National Sports Board Rules already tie official recognition of NSFs as a requisite to access government funding, thereby inculcating transparency in financial management.

Australia has adopted a different path in consideration of sports governance, having established ‘Sport Integrity Australia’ in order to centralise anti-doping regulations, competition integrity and related oversight functions. This regulatory body possesses investigatory powers, duties, institutional independence and a parallel role as the enforcer of sporting governance functions. The nation also established their own National Sports Tribunal in 2019 for resolution of sports disputes. This legislative route has allowed Australia to create independent bodies with a clear mandate for athlete protection and integrity in sports, while drawing a line between regulatory, adjudicatory and internal administration functions. Drawing from the Australian model, India must maintain the adjudicatory independence of its NST in order to avoid conflicts of interest with respective National Sports Bodies and effectively separate prosecutorial roles from adjudicatory functions.

France’s Code du Sport concerns itself with a regime where the State’s supervisory role is explicit, and sports federations operate under ministerial delegations that provide recognition to a single accredited federation per sport. The strong emphasis on the State’s role reduces ambiguity about authority and responsibilities. In the present case, India’s NSG Act and related Rules must be assessed against this benchmark of clarity pioneered by France. Where the ambit of statutory delegation is broad, the existence of well-structured review mechanisms and parliamentary oversight is central to prevent residue of discretionary powers and avoid arbitrary regulation.

Critique

Oversight v. Autonomy

The NSG Act and its Rules adopt a hybrid approach reflecting a blend of elements from various jurisdictions. Parallelly however, there exist certain structural concerns within the NSG framework which merit one’s attention.

At the outset, the NSB’s wide array of powers to recognise, suspend, inquire and restructure sports federations positions it as the central gatekeeper of Indian sport. Wherever appointment and oversight mechanisms remain closely linked with the executive, there exists a risk that decisions may reflect administrative convenience rather than neutral governance. Thus, the legitimacy of the NSB will depend less on its wide ambit of statutory power, and more on how transparently this power is exercised. This transparency can be substantiated by reasoned actions, bona fide grounds for intervention, published performance indicators, strict inquiry timelines and review processes inculcated by the NSB.

Unfortunately, risks of excessive regulatory intervention by the NSB are not merely theoretical in nature, since past interactions of India with international sporting bodies prove otherwise. Most global sports bodies impose autonomy requirements on national federations as a condition to continued membership. E.g., referring to Article 19 of the FIFA Statutes – it requires member associations to “manage their affairs independently and without undue influence from third parties,” including governments or courts. As a consequence of this provision, India, back in August 2022, had encountered a FIFA suspension of the All India Football Federation after a judicial-appointed committee of administrators temporarily assumed control of the federation. FIFA characterised the arrangement as “undue influence from third parties,” which led to India’s suspension from international football governance and temporary loss of hosting rights for the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup. Similar sanctions have been imposed in other jurisdictions as well (Indonesia in 2015 and Pakistan in multiple instances). More so, this principle of institutional autonomy is not unique to football, since the International Olympic Committee as well follows similar requirements, as reflected in its 2012 suspension of the Indian Olympic Association. These precedents demonstrate that international sporting bodies treat federation autonomy not merely as a governance suggestion but as a structural prerequisite for membership in the global sporting community.

Representation and Inclusivity

Another point of deliberation is the mandatory inclusion of ‘Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit,’ gender representation, and tiered eligibility framework under Section 4 (and other provisions) of the NSG Act. These present a conscious attempt to alleviate uneven governance and introduce merit-based criteria. However, it must be taken into consideration that formal inclusion does not automatically translate into substantive impact, with risks such as symbolic participation and tokenism looming overhead. Thus, athlete representation must move beyond numerical quotas. Empirical research suggests that athlete voice becomes meaningful only when accompanied by protected rights, institutional independence of athlete committees and adequate infrastructural and resource support.

Even so, beyond representation within governance bodies, a broader inclusivity question remains insufficiently addressed as of yet. International sports governance (for example, the Olympic Movement) increasingly recognises that participation barriers faced by women, LGBTQIA+ athletes and athletes with disabilities require targeted protections beyond mere representation quotas. In India, however, barriers persist whereby non-cishet athletes face pay parity, unequal funding, low visibility/popularity, safety concerns and limited access to infrastructure and training facilities. The NSG Act fails to articulate safeguards addressing the aforementioned socio-political concerns, which risks reproducing existing structural inequalities within the newly codified governance framework.

A second dimension of inclusivity that remains relatively unexplored within the Act relates to the recognition of indigenous sporting traditions. India possesses a rich diversity of traditional and indigenous sports such as kabaddi, mallakhamba, kho-kho, silambam and thang-ta, most of which have evolved within regional cultural practices rather than formal sporting federations. While some of these sports have gained institutional recognition in recent times, the NSG framework largely centres governance around internationally recognised sports administered through national federations. This raises an important policy question on whether statutory sports governance should also actively promote indigenous sporting traditions as part of India’s sporting ecosystem. Cross-jurisdictional examples (i.e., Jultagi tightrope walking in Korea, Chovqan in Azerbaijan, etc.) demonstrate that countries often integrate traditional games within national sports policies as a part of preserving intangible cultural heritage and expanding grassroot participation. A more explicit recognition mechanism within the NSG framework, be it through funding incentives, cultural sports councils or specialised development schemes, could help bridge the gap between formal Olympic-oriented sports governance and India’s broader sporting heritage.

Tribunal Design and Jurisdictional Uncertainty

Although the establishment of the NST is one of the Act’s most significant structural innovations, the credibility of such an adjudicatory body rests upon demonstrable independence. In practice, this can only be corroborated through transparent appointment processes, fixed tenures, disclosure of conflict of interests and a defined appellate route. If it is observed that regulatory and adjudicatory functions appear to be closely intertwined, parties may seek constitutional (writ jurisdictions of High Court/Supreme Court) or international forums (e.g., CAS) instead.

The NSG Act also grants the NST exclusive jurisdiction over all sports disputes without clearly delineating the boundaries of this phrase, which raises ambiguity about the breadth of implications upon arbitrability under Indian law. In the sense, if NST’s jurisdiction is interpreted very widely, then several disputes involving sports bodies may no longer be allowed to go to arbitration, even if those disputes are purely contractual or commercial in nature, and not nearly concerned with sports governance under the NSG Act. At the same time, disputes falling within the exclusive jurisdiction of international forums such as the CAS are carved out as exceptions. This essentially creates a bifurcated system in which domestic disputes may be rendered non-arbitrable in India, whereas appeals from decisions of the NST may be allowed before the CAS. This statutory inconsistency may lead to overlap of jurisdictions and issues with enforcement. In the event that CAS delivers an award and enforcement is sought in India, a party might argue that sports disputes are under exclusive NST jurisdiction, hence the award by CAS should not be enforceable. Further, parties may engage in forum shopping strategies, by framing their disputes in a manner which allows them to choose the forum that benefits them more, i.e., filing before the NST to avoid arbitration, or, escalating the dispute before the CAS for strategic reasons. This complicates the objective of establishing a specialised domestic dispute resolution framework. One possible way to reconcile this tension is to ensure that the NST’s jurisdiction remains narrowly focused on governance and regulatory disputes under the NSG Act, while contractual and sport-specific disciplinary matters continue to remain open to arbitration or international sports tribunals such as CAS. Essentially, this would allow India to maintain regulatory oversight without undermining the institutional independence that international sporting bodies treat as a prerequisite for participation in global competitions.

Conclusion

The hard law(unch) of the NSG Act marks a beacon of transition from soft law to statutory discipline. Yet, comparative landscape demonstrates that the success of sports governance regimes lies not only in strong regulation, but in calibrated transparency, trust and separation of powers. Each of the models deliberated above (UK/Australia/France) reflect a different balance between autonomy and accountability. India’s approach blends these elements into a hybrid architecture with commendable ambition. In practice, it now must demonstrate maturity in the exercise of the authority garnered upon it, in order to stabilise Indian sports governance, and reduce reliance on constitutional courts and international tribunals.

Author: Sanjana Kothari is a fourth year law student at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar

Editor: Ojasi Gopikrishna