Why preference to insignificant games?

The excellence of the athletes in the Asian Games is a delight for our eyes, but the event also provokes a few legitimate and logical questions. It feels wonderful to see our neighbours winning a bucketful of medallion. It feels wonderful to hear the commentators saying that there were no hope in women's track and field events for India but it is this track and field that has produced the highest number of medals for them. North Eastern girl Hima Das continues to inspire anyone trying to reach new heights. Unexpected victories are always sweeter. What Bangladesh achieved was also unexpected. Our football came under heavy criticism during the last few years, but they reached the second round of the tournament for the first time in the Asian Games history. But apart from that the entire contingent have failed to produce anything, not even a promise or a dream. When Indian athletes were seen qualifying for almost all finals, our men and women failed to qualify in the finals of any discipline. Long gone are the days when our sprinters or swimmers dominated the SAFF Games. Instead of graduating to the Asian level we are still busy burping with success from extremely rare SAFF medals. Yet, the sports fraternity is more bustling with every kind of dubious and dicey activity. Short sighted, misleading and tinted are these activities organised by the self-serving, long-winded so-called organisers. About a year ago there was an event organised to find swimmers from the grassroots level which finally awarded a handsome amount to few regular students of BKSP. There was a junior athletics meet where most of the medal winners were from BKSP though they represented different districts or divisions. When our neighbours are planning for the real things such as Olympics Games, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games or World Cups, we are eye-washing our people, the government and the country with events line Para Olympics, Islamic Games, children's games. youth Olympics etc. Because of the commercial value of sports nowadays we get every kind of insignificant Olympics starting from Para Olympics to youth Olympics to children Olympics or insignificant Games like Islamic Games or Asian children games. Besides there are few games such as unified games or blind games which are played to include the challenged population of the world and these games are played with pure spirit of participation. But the organisers of these sports in our country field players with questionable qualifications. One of our so-called mentally challenged footballer had gone missing in the US about six months back. It springs to my mind that why in good sense policymakers won’t ask the organisers how we can be beating French National Unified Football team on the very day France became world champions. Hope the policymakers and the bureaucracy that set targets and allocates resources to these untrustworthy organisers have clear understanding of the situation to enforce minimum transparency and accountability. Otherwise, it will be extremely uncomfortable for any sport loving, self-respecting Bangalee to watch these major world events. * The writer, a serving lieutenant colonel of the Bangladesh Army, is the principal of Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishtan (BKSP)