Sports and Bond

The wave of IPL fever is fast catching up all of India. It is back with all its glitz and glamour (not to mention the cheerleaders). Keeping this as the base I would like to bring a different angle to the bond issue. There was a time when cricket was game played by gentlemen in an elegant manner. Things have moved on and have moved quite fast; so fast that test matches have been converted into short T20s and the elegant gentlemanly game played for days together is now a fast paced thriller with edge of the seat excitement. But probably the biggest change is the ‘commoditization’ of players. Once upon a time Lisbon, Portugal was considered as the international capital of slave trade. In present scenario, the auctioning of players for the IPL is a disguised form of trading, with the buyers being rich corporate honchos and glitzy bollywood stars and the people being traded are the players who, in contrary to the old times, are happy to be auctioned. In fact players being auctioned for higher money are treated with great respect. There is a contract that keeps these players bound to the team and which effectively makes them slaves to the team. Adding to that, a bond that they sign would restrict them from playing in any other rival league (as explained below).
There was this fiasco between IPL and ICL over players playing in each of the leagues. There was a bond that was mandatory for players of each league to sign which effectively forbids them from playing for the other league. Even players signing the bond for the rebel league (ICL) were dumped by their cricket board. This just goes to show that signing a bond can be career ending move if it is not well thought out. This kind of restriction is not a good sign for players as well as sports as a whole. Thankfully, this edition of IPL has allowed the players from the rival league to be absorbed in the present league. There was again a tussle between ECB (English Cricket Board) and its players for participation in IPL. The ECB has set strict guidelines that any English cricketer having signed the contract with ECB is not eligible to play in the IPL. If any player does not heed to the warning, he would not only face monetary sanction but he might as well be banned from wearing the England jersey ever again. So the only player playing in IPL, Dmitry Mascarenhas did one intelligent thing by not signing the contract from ECB.
Another facet of bond is seen in the field of football. Recently the transfer of Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United to Real Madrid caused great furore. Cristiano Ronaldo and Sepp Blatter( FIFA President) went on to say that modern ways of restricting player movement through bonds and contractual obligations is an innovative way of ‘enslaving’ players to the respective teams. The ‘slave’ allegation eventually led to Manchester United giving away their prized possession to Real Madrid. It is also seen that many young players being nurtured by clubs have a release clause on their contract which asks the teams to pay an extra amount just because the player has signed a bond when he was a teenager, hardly knowing the nuances of a contract. So when he grows up, he realizes that he cannot play for the club of his choice just because he signed some paper (bond paper) when he was a kid.
The same analogy exists in the corporate field. When a person joins as a freshman (teenager in a football field), he has hardly any idea about corporate world and unquestioningly signs in every piece of paper that the organization asks him to, only to realize that one year down the line when he contemplates moving out of the company he is bound by the chains of bond which becomes an extra burden for employees who do not come from a well to do family (in a lot of cases, their sole earner). Employers definitely have an obligation of recovering the money that they spend on an employee’s training, and with that sense they are probably right in getting the bond signed. But restricting the movement of employees to the places of their choice does not help the company as an employee might as well become rebellious and become a non performing asset(NPA).
In case there is a situation where the immediate superior of an employee develops some kind of animosity towards him/her. So the superior tries to create an environment where employee can be constructively discharged. Now the employee, given the circumstances wants to leave the organization because of the hostile work environment. But then the issue of bond crops up. So in such case the employee is in a lose-lose situation. This is just one perspective of dark side of bond. A lot of other issues regarding bonds have been extensively discussed by friends here.

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Satya Swaroop Sahoo