A massive clean-up operation like never before awaits Sri Lanka’s new Sports Minister who will find corruption, nepotism, abuse and exploitation of position and even human smuggling high on the list to eradicate that has engulfed sports on a monumental scale.
The free-for-all that continued beyond comprehension only created overnight multi millionaires in an environment tailor-made for exploitation with abuse in cricket reaching unprecedented levels of indulgence that no amount of public protests and even Parliament could stop.
But former cricket administrators of unblemished track records are now hoping for the change that the whole country cried out for and was blocked by defeated President Ranil Wickremasinghe who was thrown out of office thanks to a popular people’s vote followed by a rousing Parliamentary victory on Friday.
“Now it is up to the new government to make a call and I want to see this change taking place which I am hopeful.
“Doing the necessary Constitutional changes must be foremost”, said Sidat Wettimuny who stands out as one of the few former Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) administrators with an unblemished track record to go with his image as a player.
Four official Investigative Reports on corruption at SLC, two compiled by retired Supreme Court judges, are presently gathering dust and rust.
One of the Reports blame the high number of 147 votes most of which can be bought or compromised at an election of cricket officials to SLC which is considered the root cause of abuse and exploitation.
While the clean-up of cricket administration stands high on the list, the so-called National Olympic Committee (NOC) has also booked its place as another shady entity that last week prompted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to issue an order to suspend its secretary Maxwell de Silva.
In 2023 former Member of Parliament Chaminda Mayadunne branded the NOC as the most corrupt in the country according to an Audit Report in 2022 that indulged in human smuggling among other unscrupulous acts.
Former Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe, who was sacked by Wickemasinghe over his battle against corruption in cricket, fired a letter to the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) highlighting several misdeeds commited by the NOC.
Also in an appalling state are the associations running football, rugby and motor racing with egoism and negligence among other factors taking centre-stage.
