With expectations of the dawn of a new era in the country, millions of sports followers in Sri Lanka are convinced the change will spell the end of corruption that for two decades has enriched the lifestyles of shady officials who have been allowed to carry on with political patronage.
Sports followers expect the most important and drastic changes to take place in cricket where officials have been listed in at least two high profile Investigative Reports of indulging in financial abuse and mismanagement, power and position abuse, nepotism and greedy exploitation of an outdated governing Constitution.
Olympic sports too gained notoriety at an organization known as the National Olympic Committee (NOC) whose officials were branded in Parliament as some of the most corrupt in financial rip-offs and even human smuggling after athletes and officials accompanying teams jumped ship and disappeared.
Football administration too hit the dumps and was banned while rugby, a sport whose office-bearers in the past were considered gentlemen of high standing, became the repository of miscreants in power struggles.
While corrupt sports officials held sway, many sportsmen and women either fell by the wayside or used their own funds to represent the country while millions were busted on foreign jaunts or siphoned off into the private accounts of crooked administrators.
“I am talking on behalf of all sportsmen and women in Sri Lanka who are deprived of the basics to represent their country and get no support from the (Sports) Ministry”, said veteran motor racer Dilantha Malagamuwa addressing a group of former athletes at a forum this week in connection with the September 21 Presidential election.
Malagamuwa spent his own funds not only to race overseas but also to showcase Sri Lanka by sporting the Lion flag on his Formula machine while governments spent money by the millions on advertising a concept called “Visit Sri Lanka” to boost tourism.
“How much money is spent for a television advertisement to get foreigners to visit Sri Lanka”, Malagamuwa asked. “We get nothing for pasting stickers on our cars while racing overseas inviting foreigners to visit Sri Lanka and it is only through sport that we can get foreigners to visit Sri Lanka”.
At age 61, Malagamuwa counts over a hundred podium appearances and eight championship titles on the international racing circuit and was honoured by Japan in 1997 for becoming the first non-Japanese Asian to compete in the Nippon F3000 the highest level in the land of the rising sun.
