Governance in sport

I just kept on thinking of that Dolly Parton favourite ‘the coat of many colours’. At that moment I could not think of the significance of a thought of that nature because I am not a great lover of that particular number. Then when I went through the morning papers I saw the connection with the headline “Three rugby selectors resign to protest Minister’s interference”. It is indeed a sad irony but a looming truth.

In the past few weeks the Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge has taken some unilateral decisions which have interfered with the day-to-day activities of sports especially taking the two most popular sports in the island – cricket and rugby.

In cricket he overruled the decision of selectors - de Mel and Co, to leave out former captain Marvan Atapattu and then followed it up by re-installing four rugby players who skipped practices for the rugby Asiad when the five-prong selection committee had a clear mandate to leave them out.

But the question is, as a layman, how qualified is the sports minister to arbitrate on such issues? The post of Sports Minister is generally handed over to a person from the ruling party without giving any consideration to his affinity to it. In short it is purely a political appointment.

Let’s take a few steps back and delve into a very short period of history in cricket to begin with. With the advent of Tom Moody as the coach of Sri Lanka he infused a few of his own notions that he brought along with him to the game. One of them was to phase out the seniors and infusing young blood into the cricketing veins of the nation.

That was the first cast of the witch’s spell to most of cricket ills that were to follow. The Minister of Sports with powers vested in him calls for nominations from the incumbent sports body in power for the positions of a given number of selectors and then appoints a number that he wishes to in return. The selection committee who was appointed by the minister at that time took Moody’s cue as gospel and started the act by forcing Sanath Jayasuriya into retirement.

What happened in the aftermath of that move was more infectious. The then minister of Sports Jeevan Kumaranatunge using the powers vested in him changed the selection committee of Lalith Kaluperuma and company and installed his predecessor messrs Asantha de Mel as chairman of selectors who duly brought back Sanath Jayasuriya who in return helped Sri Lanka to help themselves into a five-nil whitewash against England in their own backyard.

However it was later revealed that during Asantha’s previous occupation of the hot-seat there was a certain incident that took place between the then captain Marvan Atapattu and chief selector Asantha de Mel over the exclusion of middle order batsman T.M. Dilshan. The breach at that point may have built up to a huge rift between the two individuals during the last World Cup where the latter was overlooked for the entire tournament.

Then a while later Marvan was brought back only to be declined. Brought back once again and declined again and then decided by the selectors to be left out altogether. But, right along the way the whole episode was handled by the selectors – Especially the chairman of selectors was highly arguable.

A while before that when it came to the renewal of the names of the selection committee the SLC hierarchy decided to leave out the name of Asantha de Mel, but the sheer insistence of the minister of sports saw the compromise coming in and de Mel’s name being reinstalled.

Against the backdrop of all this unholy scenario once again the Minister took matters into his own hands and overruled the decision taken by the man whom he insisted upon so much not to be left out of the selection committee.

After the inclusion of Atapattu, the cricket selection committee have stood, still unlike the rugby selection committee chairman Anton Benedict who tendered his resignation along with two other members who opted to stand by their principles.

Introducing Sports Law

A little over a three decades ago the then minister of Sports K.B. Ratnayake who was a sportsman himself introduced Sports Law to this country to overcome some of the sporting ills that prevailed in this country in that era. But, from that point the Lankan sport has moved a couple of miles upwards, but, no significant changes have been seen by the Sports Law of this country to live according to the present day needs. For a person who wants to use it judiciously it is a strong tool to set things right. For a bull-in-a-china shop-it is a bad weapon which could do a lot of damage to a sport in the long run,with a very short term gain.

One very knowledgeable sports administrator of the past who was discussing such a situation asked why does not the minister appoint a Sports Advisory Committee that comprises persons of impeccable integrity like some of the past national captains who have more to gain by preserving their own reputations and in return guide the minister on the correct path in any of the decisions that he takes. In a scenario of that nature no one could shout fault against any decisions taken by the ministry of sports or the Minister because every decision has been taken by a set of persons who are very competent in the respective sport played at an international level.

In cricket the situation got out of hand with the winning of the World Cup in 1996. Ironically today neither the World Cup winning captain nor the Cricket Board President who presided over its activities are in any way involved in the game in spite of their contribution towards the professionalisation of the sport. Even rugby is growing in Asia. With countries with huge populations like India and China taking to the game earnestly it could trigger a huge TV interest in the sport which would end up with the game making millions of dollars and become a power-hub with the money it could generate. Perennially Sri Lanka has been a rugby playing nation and the eventual shift in focus into rugby in Asia is also not too far away.

Right at this moment our whole sporting structure which cascades down from the Minister of Sports is not professional enough when one takes the recent occurrences into consideration.

Like the coat of many colours the present structure may look good to us, but when it comes to the real mechanism of things it may not be sufficient.