India’s National Sports Governance Act, 2025: What It Means for Athletes, Federations and the Sector

Update: The Act was notified on 18 August 2025, with select provisions in force from 1 January 2026.

The National Sports Governance Act, 2025 gave Indian sport its first dedicated statute on governance. Guided by the Olympic and Paralympic Charters, it aims to provide for the development and promotion of sport, to protect the welfare of athletes and give them a voice, and to create transparent mechanisms for resolving disputes. This overview by AM Sports Law & Management Co., prepared at the Bill stage, sets out how the framework works.

Why a national sports law

With more than 350 legal disputes pending across sports bodies, the courts had repeatedly emphasised the need for a unified governance model. The Act responds to calls for integrity, transparency and fairness in sports administration, for stronger athlete rights and gender equity, for effective grievance redressal and for alignment with global practice. It follows a long line of reform efforts: the 1975 guidelines, the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011, the draft National Sports Development Bill, the Prevention of Sporting Fraud Bill, 2013, the National Sports Ethics Commission Bill, 2016, the National Code for Good Governance in Sports, 2017 and the Sports (Online Gaming and Prevention of Fraud) Bill, 2018.

What changes from the 2011 Code

The 2011 Code was a body of executive guidelines enforced through the courts. The Act places governance on a statutory footing. Office bearers must be under 70 when nominations are filed, with flexibility up to 75 where the international charters and bye-laws permit. Presidents, Secretaries General and Treasurers may serve three consecutive terms followed by a four-year cooling-off period. Executive Committees, capped at 15 members, must include at least four women, two sportspersons of outstanding merit and two members elected from the Athletes’ Committee. Every recognised body must adopt a Code of Ethics and a Safe Sport Policy covering minors and women.

Three new institutions

• The National Sports Board becomes the statutory regulator for national sports bodies, responsible for recognition, audits and compliance, with the power to suspend or cancel recognition and a mandate to build capacity as well as enforce.
• The National Sports Tribunal is a dedicated quasi-judicial body for disputes on elections, selection, management, grants and ethics. Pending civil cases are transferred to it, appeals lie only to the Supreme Court, and international event and anti-doping disputes stay with their own panels.
• The National Sports Election Panel, drawn from former election commissioners and electoral officers, oversees elections across federations in place of federation-run and court-appointed arrangements.

Other features

Recognised sports bodies become public authorities under the Right to Information Act. A No Objection Certificate from the Central Government is needed to use national names and insignia. The pyramid structure of sport is respected, with international federations consulted on matters concerning national federations, and national federations consulted on matters concerning their affiliated units. Key posts require prior experience, either two terms on an executive committee or recognition as a sportsperson of merit.

The way forward

The Act will bring federations into compliance within a set time frame, give athletes a meaningful role in decision-making and centralise oversight. It should also reduce reliance on court-appointed committees, which have in the past exposed Indian sport to findings of third-party interference by international bodies, with athletes bearing the cost. Many of its provisions are framed broadly and leave room for detailed rules on the Board, the Tribunal, safe sport, data protection, ethics, recognition and conflicts of interest, and those rules will give the framework its practical effect.