Fleecing, bleaching, cheating, fixing, assaulting, robbing, globe-trotting, smuggling, bribing is the name of the game in Sri Lanka sports:
Following the apparent dismantling of what many saw as a political mafia in the country that provided a free-for-all from the top to bottom, it may take a clean-up of monumental proportions to eradicate the island’s destructive sports set-up that for the past 25 or more years had become a fertile ground for corruption of the highest order unprecedented in the annals of Sri Lanka’s sporting history.
Brutalizing match officials in full public view is an indication of the complete breakdown of the sports set-up in the country
Some watchers have even compared the scenario to a ‘Sports Mafia’ having a field day but the stark reality is that Sri Lanka’s sports set-up has been allowed to fester into a seemingly no-redemption situation in a country where sportsmen and women from junior school level to club and national level are being exploited by their superiors officials, coaches, masters, managers, guardians, custodians, commercial godfathers and even some sacrilegious clergymen.
While the whole country has been made aware of what has been documented about cricket in at least four Probe reports, two of which have been compiled by retired Supreme Court Judges, another by the Auditor General and a final Recommendation by three Ministers of the former government, nearly every other major sport in the country from junior to senior level has been brought to ruin and merely enriched the lifestyles of a chosen few entrusted with its welfare.
No other segment in the country has been able to carry on with such impunity the way some so-called sports officials have done and continue to do as if it was their private fiefdom and brag about securing Sri Lanka an accepted place in the international arena with just one Olympic medal in 75 years.
Under their coats and in their ties hide the indulgence behind closed doors while genuine sportsmen and women sulk in their shoes and the privileged few sportsmen and women just like some of their keepers use sport as a stepping stone for personal enhancement or a means to climb the social ladder for public acceptance.
Even an up-roar in Parliament in 2023 for a clean-up in cricket and an investigation into the shady conduct of an Olympic official was of little or no use and the present caretaker government or the new government to be installed in six weeks time would need something out of this world to dislodge the culprits and miscreants involved in the cruel business of sport. For such is the extent to which sports administration in the country has been degraded by the very people entrusted with its welfare while some in fact have become game-keepers turned poachers.
A dossier on the disasters would list some of the most appalling acts committed in the name of fair-play. A big time football boss had a rollicking time playing with foreign funds and some of his successors did the same although not on a scale that he was alleged to have indulged in while a so-called Olympic official got away in what was listed as human smuggling jaunts.
Never in the history of Sri Lanka did a Member of Parliament, in this case Chaminda Mayadunne, tell the Supreme legislature making body in the country last December that the National Olympic Committee (NOC) was most corrupt according to an Audit Report of 2022.
In his Parliament speech Mayadunne accused the NOC of taking custody of international funding meant for former Olympic medallist Susanthika Jayasinghe and depriving another Olympian sprinter Yupun Abeykoon of Opportunities to move forward.
Last year the then Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe fired a letter to the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) that highlighted several misdeeds committed by the NOC.
Once branded the only sport that had gentlemen in its ranks, rugby in Sri Lanka was turned upside down for the first time ten years ago when an administration influenced by the country’s First family changed the Elephant crest on the jersey of players to that of the Lion confusing and putting it in an image-conflict with cricket. If that was not enough, the same rugby administration headed by a political turncoat orchestrated what was said to be fraudulently prepared passports so three Fijian aliens could represent the Sri Lanka team. The culprits got away scot-free and the Fijians took with them three extraordinary Souvenirs.
Rugby also gained notoriety by the alleged private incarceration of a player who had turned out for Navy followed by the tragic and mysterious death of another player, Sri Lanka fly-half Wasim Thajudeen who died in a deadly car crash that even the world’s best Formula One drivers may not be subjected to.
Rugby’s image was further shattered at youth level three months ago with the brutalizing of a match official at schools rugby whose princely caretakers had a Highly Prosperous 2024 at the expense of players.
School rugby players can no longer perform to their liking and enjoyment ensuring that their highly paid coaches and keepers do not lose their jobs while some of their school heads and Old Boys will accept nothing short of victory. In the latest topic doing the rounds a player had extreme difficulty to answer a call of nature for three days after he was brutalized by seniors in the privacy of a gym over his failure to witness an important match.
The Sunday Observer has been made well aware of the trauma that some young girls are subjected to after making their way to Colombo from the villages in search of prospects to make the grade and realize their dreams in track and field sports while sexual harassment of other athletes offers nothing new to document. The list can go on.
It took the lives of eight spectators at a motor-racing event in April this year to open the eyes and ears of people entrusted with the welfare of their patrons and ticket holders while another patronized domestic event called the Lanka Premier League (LPL) that refers to cricket has been tainted by fixing allegations and continues to be the pet event of officials for reasons best known to them.
For the exploitation of and in sports to cease, the eradication of a Monopoly has to be followed by a complete supervision and continuous public scrutiny of the welfare of sportsmen and women in any sport at all levels.
Sport by its escalation to stardom has now too serious a subject to be left in the hands of unscrupulous men for their enrichment.
