Is Sri Lanka Sports being waylaid by mercenaries?

“Did I hear right?” said my friend, as we nearly ran the red traffic light – there was Vivek Oberoi inviting listeners to join him at Bogambara and the next moment we nearly rammed a frisky coupe as Bipasa Basu crooned about sitting beside us at Bogambara.

My somewhat nerdy pal may be cyber-zoned but he had missed the swanky media overdrive heralding the battery of superstars taking or taken to the hills for the Carlton Super 7’s Rugby Fiesta that kicked off over the weekend in Kandy.

Add to this glitterati, world class rugby sevens exponents from England, South Africa, Fiji, Samoa, New Zealand and God knows where else, and you have an extravaganza that is mind-blowing and nerve-shattering to say the least.

That this rugby tournament has the blessings of the SLRFU and the munificence of the Carlton Sports Club as well as the kokathat thailai (medicines sans illness) largesse of a Sri Lanka Insurance sponsorship, speaks volumes of how sports in this country is transforming these days. If you want to get on the bandwagon, there is only one way to go; bring the mercenaries in to play!

Cricketainment

This column has argued time and again that sports cannot progress without adequate funds but that sports must become a carnival with entertainment as the sole arbiter is quite something else.

A recent interview with a management guru on the latest aberration, cricketainment, attempts to throw some light on the phenomenon. The guru devathawo argues that if the spectators turn out, it suggests that consumer preference is satisfied; that speaks for itself.

Never mind the product quality and FDA approvals; more sugar is great, as long as a palpitating public consumes the morsel to its grovelling ultimate end! Simply put, as long as an indiscriminating public show-time is guaranteed and a rampant gravy train lines fastidious pockets, everything else is justified and beguiled fanatics are lulled into the frolic of the carnival.

T 20, IPL and greenbacks

A newspaper item tucked away in obscure pages reports that the Ministry of Education has banned schoolchildren less than 18 years of age from playing T 20 cricket! Why in heavens name should they do that?

Malinga the freelancer is demonstrating that there are no greenbacks under a country cap. As we have seen these last few weeks from the IPL telecasts, brandishing his platinum locks and bowling incessant yorkers at a batsman’s toe is an infinitely better proposition than chancing his square arm for Sri Lanka.

The much-heralded young superstar Matthews must be pondering his own fateful stance in the draconian hellfire of the sub continental menagerie, where the filthy lucre is spread like marmalade and all it does to start a feast is one generous lick of what is on offer.

SLC sullenly pontificates in the meantime. While its contractual charges are rubbing shoulders with cricket gladiators and sequined cheer leaders at bunga parties that would make Berlusconi look an altar server, the big guns of cricket here are feverishly putting together its own T 20 tournament. And for what!

We have had a large dose of big hitting and succulent catches from the world’s best exponents of the gentleman’s game, that one would want to ask if we need more of the same. There lies the rub; the raison d’être! One reason more than any other that makes good sense, is money. So, if that indeed is the reason, then why should the poor school fellows who are dreaming of emulating a Gayle like force or our own demigods, the double Ms, do otherwise?

Holier than thou, the SLC has correctly shut the door on all facilities for goldilocks and unkindly perhaps, consigned our national wicketkeeper to category number three. Diabolical is the catchword, but that is the uncanny state of affairs in most of our sports backyards these days!

Cynical contradictions

The Ministry of Sports (MOS) must know of all these cynical contradictions. Indeed it admonishes the National Sports Associations on how to conduct their affairs in a proper manner but actively supports the merry-go-rounds in our sports carnivals.

There is no gainsaying that both the Carlton 7’s and the SLC T 20 have State patronage and active vigorous support from the powers that be. If only the MOS for a moment steps back and takes a good hard look on how each of the National Sports are evolving today, it will see an unbridled interest in getting on the bandwagons that are abundantly favouring cricket and rugby at present.

The magic formula it seems be, is to get the Carlton prefix and lo and behold the bounty arrives at your doorstep even before you know. All else fades into the ether! That is why it was not difficult to imagine a National Sports Corporation that would be run with full-scale commercial interests so that all the drama about country before self can be manifest and moulded to suit our political currency!

AASL

The London Olympics are just days away and the tenets that Coubertin espoused are now surfacing to underline the apolitical nature of the modern Olympics. Our MOS would have none of that.

Having allowed a controversial election of the AASL, it earned the wrath of the IAAF before squeezing out an agreement to run the Asian Junior Athletics Championship as planned. The MOS now threatens to ban those who petitioned the IAAF. No witch-hunts are necessary. Let those people go their way; they were also-rans who believed that the sport could not survive without them. What the MOS must focus on is if they have done the right thing themselves.

In politicising the sport and parachuting people of its choice, the MOS is encroaching on territory that is a matter for the AASL to resolve, however degenerated it may be. It is the task of the MOS to prevent such degradation with timely a supervisory mechanism which it regrettably lacks and that is the crunch! Otherwise, our Olympian archer would not be going to London without his coach, would he!

Not for mercenaries

Our sports needs money, a lot of it, but it does not need mercenaries who are preying like vultures to extract all it can from the sport without worrying for a moment about its technical development or its long-term refinement. That is what the sports loving public and the MOS must guard against.

Numerous are the examples of sports mandarins who beat their chest to serve national and international bodies at the expense of the sport that offered them that platform in the first place.

Whatever they do, they must always remember that at the heart of the sport are the sportsmen and sportswomen who toil each day for a place in the sun or the spotlights; it is not a forum for mercenaries who crave more money!