The Glory and the Ignominy of Sri Lanka Football!
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Congratulations is due to the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) President on his election as a co-opted member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). An enviable achievement this, even if it is for representing South Asia Football Federation (SAFF), rather than the FFSL. A back room entry is as good as the front door, when it comes to such privileged sanctums, even while SL languishes at the bottom of FIFA rankings. Without sounding peevish, SL Football fans can perhaps hope that the Football boss can now campaign for greater support from the AFC, not just for more money for SAFF and the FFSL, but for more meaningful systems of development, where these backward nations of the game can propel themselves into the prestigious arenas of the sport. One can bask in the glory, but it is the ignominy of failure that the Football boss must deal with on an urgent basis.
Even while the FFSL President and his entourage were in gay Paris for the FIFA & AFC Congresses, the National Team was touring Nepal, playing friendlies, to prepare for the World Cup Qualifying Rounds against Macau, that will take SL into the next round, if they were to win! The results are not significant at this stage, so there is no point in making a song and dance about the nice friendly draw that was secured in the 2nd game.
The slogan, ‘Api Ready’ that is now being bandied about by the FFSL is interesting enough, but the question to ask is, “Ready for what?” A regime change is what Football fans are clamoring for, and rumors of ministerial interventions in FFSL affairs, under the threat of sanctions, is now common knowledge in Football circles.
If the FFSL Chief and his team are as smart as they claim on their frequent jaunts around the world, the short term strategy should be to get all factions in SL Football together and let them help shape the future. Merely remaining in office is not a ticket for posterity ridden by such depressing standards of performance or governance. All Football enthusiasts within a whiff of what is going on, are only well aware that the FFSL has been dragged down by a bunch of goons, who don’t know that the sport of Football is more than kicking a ball around! The FFSL Secretary, who generally waxes eloquent on all Football subjects, promises the era of a Semi-Pro League, but does very little to demonstrate what happened to the New Constitution a la FIFA, the Vision 2020 Plan or, the lucky repository of the missing Rs. 25 million of FFSL funds.
It is indeed ironic, that the newly formed Association of Sports Federations Society (ASFS) has, among its founding fathers, the FFSL, who must now pledge to uphold the ideals of this new sports society, by professing to fight for transparency, promote inclusiveness and uphold fair play. The ASFS President talks about a healthy mind in a healthy body, but there must arise serious doubt, if this entity includes bodies that are marginally legitimate, even in the interpretation of the period of office, a constitution that has been hacked and denigrated over time and not least, repeated queries by the Auditor General, to which, interim injunctions have all but swept these glaring fault lines under a very thick carpet, never to surface again. Is it not the duty of the honorable FFSL Ex-Co to put these matters right, instead of taking cover in the tutelage of the NOC, the ASFS or the SAFF, and paying pooja to the powers that be, both here and abroad?
Sadly, for this nation and its Football followers, the Minister of Sports, busy as he is with the state of our sports, including Cricket, Rugby, Badminton and Netball, to name just a few, where his personal interventions have not yielded the best results, may not wish to throw Football into that basket of the ‘have to fix’ organisations. It appears now, that Sports typifies the dysfunctional state of our republic. And thus it must be left to the organisation and that means, its very people, more than anyone else, to be the change that is being demanded. ‘Api Ready’ for that long needed reform is all that can be said for now!