Fans, media and players are some of the key components of any sporting event and the organizers of the event have to ensure that everything is in place so that inconvenience is not caused to them.
Playing matches before empty stands with no crowd or a handful is certainly demoralizing to say the least and does reflect badly on the event organizers. If all the on field things are taken care of and the players are looked after the fan treatment and their comfort zone needs to be looked into.
Take the classic case of parking, many stadiums in South Goa have no designated parking for fans or done at the last minute. At one place the last minute parking place which was cleared of all the wild vegetation has cemented slabs in the middle of the parking lot with no indicators about the impending danger.
The volunteers, all drawn from Sports For All, a public relations company, are there but they have been hardly trained how to go about the job leaving fans to park in any haphazard manner, which caused many traffic bottlenecks in and around a few stadiums.
It was a nice sight to see many Goan families come up in large numbers to support the basketball teams at the Manohar Parrikar Stadium in Navelim. Many fans complained about the lack of publicity about the timings and venues where a particular sport is played owing to which some fans missed crucial matches.
If fans' presence at the stadium serves as a tonic for players in many ways, the media is a window to the world and a channel to showcase the work an organization or an individual is doing. But sadly that aspect of the media has been thrown into the wayside with outstation Public relations company and its officials calling the shots, thanks to the callous attitude of SAG in handling media affairs.
The local media has been sidelined to a large extent and the flow of information from the people, who are entrusted with the responsibility to the journalists, has been lacking on various fronts. Many photographers and videographers have been given media accreditation for the event but they do not have access to the field of play, an issue which was raised on the first of the badminton competition.
But the issue has not been settled yet. Are the photographers and videographers to shoot from the stands, asked one. Then why there is a need for the photographers and videographer accreditation; one can very well get a spectator entry and do the job.
Ideally, the world over international and national events of such magnitude have a press committee. A committee which has representatives from all media, the traditional media, TV, Radio, online and also the social media influencers and which is able to list out the needs of the media personnel when it comes to particular sports coverage. Have an exercise of this nature be done by the Sports Authority of Goa.
Many journalists were not sure whether they would be able to get their special pass for the opening ceremony. With the Prime Minister attending the opening ceremony certain security protocols have to be followed and journalists were asked to submit their aadhar card one week in advance to complete the security screening.
But a few journalists who submitted their Aadhar copies are still awaiting the passes and are not sure from where and with whom to collect. South Goa journalists are at the receiving end as the Department of Information office situated at Collectorate building has been closed some months back, that was one hope that the journalists were hoping and one channel where they could follow up on their opening ceremony pass.
One journalist who applied for accreditation came to the stadium to inquire about the same was not allowed entry inside the stadium since he had no card so he had to turn back and go back disappointed. Inquiries with Rajesh Naik, the Assistant Stadium Manager proved a blank and the Public relations company entrusted with the job said they have no cards with them and everything has been handed over to SAG.
But there were no SAG personnel who could clear the air on the pending accreditation and the opening ceremony passes, whom to contact and where. If India aims to organize Olympics it seriously will have to look into how it handles its media affairs and also the way it treat its fans, handling and treatment of both the key components will go a long way in promoting a healthy sporting culture which argues well for the sporting fraternity.
It is all chaos around Fatorda Stadium. Some staff are working overtime to make things happen. Others have no clue to the questions directed at them. No one.
