‘Foreign referees not the solution’
Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) President, Lasitha Gunaratne urged stakeholders of the sport in the country to discuss issues and make suggestions at council meetings rather than engaging in slinging mud in public forums to arrive at practical solutions affecting the game, especially regarding the standard of refereeing.
Lasitha Gunaratne
“We are taking it seriously. We can’t get foreign referees for all the matches. These things can be discussed at the council. There is a council representative from each club. This is not the first time it has happened. When it affects them only, they start talking about it. If the clubs get together and discuss this at the council level, we can come to a solution, whether it is practical or not,” said Gunaratne who is of the opinion that bringing down foreign referees is not the solution to ease the pressure on local referees, rather former school and club players should be encouraged to blow the whistle.
“It’s not practical. We have to see availability of referees also. It’s an honorary job (refereeing). We are using the best available referees in Sri Lanka. Clubs know very well these are the referees available. We have to go with the available resources,” he said laying the blame on clubs for not nominating people to become referees.
“We have asked each and every club to nominate people to get involved in refereeing. They are also not recommending or sending anyone. They also should be part of this and they also should support. The union (SLR) can’t function on their own. Clubs are also part of it. It’s not for the president or secretary to take a decision. It’s a council decision. The council has eight representatives of clubs. Therefore they also have a bigger voice. When they come to the council, they should discuss, propose and come to a decision,” he said.
The glaring mistakes which happened during the contentious Havelocks-Kandy SC first round match was not an isolated incident, according to Gunaratne.
“This is not the first time. We know very well, next year also it will happen. We have to discuss and come to a solution otherwise it will continue in 2021 and 2022. Why can’t the clubs think like that. Clubs are stakeholders of the game, part of the decision making process. Getting down the foreign referees, is not the answer. We are asking club and schools to nominate people to blow the whistle,” he said.
However, because of the Sri Lankan mentality, even if new referees join the cadre, the mourning and groaning won’t stop, he feels.
“For example if Kandy proposes certain names and they get into the refereeing panel, people will say he is from Kandy. Then how can you sort this issue. This is Sri Lanka. You can’t satisfy each and every one. We know there is a genuine drop in the standard of refereeing. The society (Sri Lanka Society of Rugby Football Referees) is also crying but we feel that what they are trying to do is not enough,” he said equating getting down foreign referees as the same as hiring foreign trainers or coaches.
“We want to uplift the standard of playing in competitions at international level. That’s why we are getting trainers and coaches. We feel we can find qualified and better people. Sometimes we fail, sometimes we succeed. Likewise this should be implemented for referees. We have (qualified) people but if we see there is a lack of educators with knowledge of latest rules, the referee society should get educators to improve their people and their members,” he said.
He said criticism of referees was not limited to the local officials alone with the society displaying their protest at SLR’s decision to bring down foreign referees.
“Recently when we got down a foreign referee, the society themselves start finding mistakes of the foreign referee. Now I took that in a good spirit. They should not limit that to the foreign referees. They should do their own analysis of each and every (local) referee and send it to us. They can send these mistakes and we can discuss it at the weekly review meeting,” said Gunaratne who felt the mistakes at the Havelocks-Kandy game have been blown out of proportion.
“Whoever you appoint, there is a problem. The way it’s going, every time they put the blame on the referee and 90 per cent (of the time) it is correct. But those things are identified after the game by watching with experts, slow motion video and whatever technology we are using. It is not ethically correct. These findings are identified after seeing videos by a number of people who get together. When the game is on, I don’t think referee can identify this all at once. But if there are general law violations, that is a serious matter,” said Gunaratne, a former Sri Lanka forward.
Although he admitted that there are issues regarding credibility of referees, they cannot be branded as cheats.
“I feel interpretation of the law by referees and coaches is contradicting each other. I feel these referee are not cheating. They make genuine mistakes and are performing to the best of their ability. But that is not enough,” warned Gunaratne urging the referees society to broaden their outlook.
“We have enough of coaches in this country. At national level why we are looking for foreign trainers and coaches is because we think we have to be better and get the latest technique for our national players to improve. If we have better qualified people involved, the national team performs better. The society as an organisation, should think these things (mistakes) are happening. Giving excuses won’t solve the problem,” he said.
Asked whether the SLR can’t take matters into their hands before it spirals out of control, he said: “We can dictate terms but we are allowing them (society) to democratically run the organisation. If it comes to a push or they don’t cooperate with us, then we have to take a decision. For that, clubs also should support us at the council level to solve this problem.”