A sage in distress!

‘The Business of Sports’ is a fortnightly column that appears every other Thursday. This is Feature #22, continuing to seek a greater public engagement in our national sports and a sporting surveillance on what goes on away from the arenas and behind the scenes. Readers are invited to share their views and express their opinion by writing to [email protected] so that greater public participation in sports affairs can emerge and embolden all sportsmen and women in Sri Lanka.

Tony Grieg is no stranger to Sri Lanka. We are only too familiar with his little Kalu interludes and his genuine affection for Sri Lanka. Therefore, when he made a plea for cricket at the Annual Spirit of Cricket oration, he was speaking not only for lovers of cricket but for sports in general, making a case that sports must not be sacrificed on the altar of avarice and greed.

He more than alluded to the BCCI and all other administrations imploring that greater counsel prevails as the game progresses into the hinterland of big business and lucrative manipulations that have all but cricket at the heart of its compulsions. For a rebel of yesteryear, the gangling stalwart has indeed come a long way, but the message cannot be clearer to all and sundry who in one way or the other is benefitted by the spoils of the game.

Sri Lanka Cricket

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) meanwhile stumbles along with financial gyrations that seem never-ending. Fortuitously, the players have stuck to their task and displayed a high level of performance in the current series against the Pakistanis that has helped dull the public concerns of its Board as it prepares for the carnival that will unfold shortly with fancy franchises being negotiated behind closed doors. And so another bandwagon is on its way befuddling the sagacity of learned personages such as Tony Grieg.

The argument put forward from people controlling the juggernaut is that Uncle Tony does not disdain lofty contracts and endorsements even today much even as he does not decline the offer of a ‘thambili’ on one of his travels to the ‘Mecca of Cricket’ in our tiny island nation.

India remains the prime culprit dictating to the ICC and peripheral associations their version of the game sans UDRS and all that. It determines how the game is to be played and there is little doubt that it will prevail on SLC in the not too distant future too!

Economics of the game

Ever so gradually, the Malinga or Gayle like freelancers are bound to take over the economics of the game by pure performances and simply demand their due outside national contractual obligations. That is indeed a fair proposition given the mercenary garb that the game has all but embraced. Why should the stars of the sport be short-ended when the mandarins at the helm lap the cream on the cake!?

There is too much money swirling around for ordinary mortals to disregard and instead propagate moral credos. We are well past that stage. Even governments seem powerless or one might say even sections of governments are covertly promoting the pandemic to serve their own miserable ends.

The generations watching from the wings are not about to miss the enactments taking place in the glare of media overdrive. For them the message is very clear; money will in the main determine prowess, heralding in the reality that the professional sportsman is now among us.

No need to suffer the torment of conscience. Just go out there, hit those big sixes, listen to Tony’s platitudes and collect your commensurate pay check.

Not only about cricket

Make no mistake that this is not only about cricket. All sports are tainted or targeted. The recent Junior Asian Athletic Championships on our shores did not escape the money trap. The Ministry of Sports (MOS) bless its soul, promised and presented handsome cash awards to the stars that shone.

One must not decry the affection and reward which must be applauded, but the message is a worrisome because it sets precedents and points young minds in a direction from which there is no turning back.

So how does one repay an emerging or accomplished athlete for the hard work that is demanded with untold sacrifices to boot? A thin line is what is being fashioned but that thin line must be thick with the overriding dictum that the lure of money should not rule the sport and that just rewards are just that and nothing more!

A tough ask for sure but that is precisely what administrations are there for inculcating at an early stage the spirit of the sport and its honourable intent.

Boost for football

It is in this context that one is confronted with a Rising Stars Football Program being introduced by a corporate sponsor in association with Manchester United. Fantastic initiative indeed and lauded by the Football Federation as a heaven sent boost for the sport! But is this another bubble being blown in a sport where the fundamentals are topsy-turvy?

Even as the Man U star Dwight Yorke arrived to create the hot air produced by the sponsor with a celebrity walk about in Colombo, the National Football U 22 team was being decimated in the UAE.

The case that one makes here is that the hoopla is thrown into a ring that has no concerted national plan for the sport. Sure, if you ask the Football CEO its plans, they will send you a blueprint that turns red every now and then.

Colossal spends have taken the game nowhere in the last few decades and a litany of garbled excuses have only gone to keep some people in clover while the poor footballer goes from pillar to post.

It is show time every day and now we have a world renowned power house sent here to make dreams real and bring communities together. A laudable vision and a game plan are not without merit, but one may want to ask the MOS to monitor the program carefully and ensure sustained delivery.

If youth of 15 to 20 years is the target group, the Ministry of Education (MOE) will have a role to play and the Schools’ Football Association should be at the heart of this endeavour. Let not it be another money guzzling venture that brings penalties instead of goals and keeps the sport mired in a cesspool of deceit.

Motor racing

Serious methodical intent for the love of the sport is an old fashioned belief. And as cricket (and to a wildly lesser extent football) are mainstream pursuits in our sports calendar, one is frequently drawn to the threadbare motor racing tracks in Sri Lanka (not night races on Colombo streets) where without any significant State support, associations such as the Asian Motor Racing Club (AMRC) are promoting the sport on their own steam and resources.Young drivers and riders initiated on go-kart circuits graduate to compete in formula racing machines hired or offered to motor racing enthusiasts. Without much fanfare, the sport goes on among this coterie of Motor Racing Associations driven by a passion and determination to keep the sport revved up. Not a cheap occupation and surely not fuelled by huge financial rewards; motor sports thrives because of a handful of die hard organisers and a responsive motor trade. This detraction is made to underline the thought that money is not the driver in a sport such as this which is a far cry from the world of F1 Motor Racing. But what is witnessed is the constant willingness of its stewards to keep the engine running as strong as ever.

We will not wave a chequered flag to salute Tony Grieg. He has offered his voice to countless millions of sports lovers, who lament but cannot be heard. The gates of T20 will speak for itself and the nature of demand and supply may determine the fate that looms before us.

But it behooves both governments and sports associations and perhaps most importantly, its proponents and fans, to take stock and prove that indeed the sage in distress has made his point!