“Sri Lankan Badminton was not going anywhere when we took over” claims Prof. Ranjit de Silva who was appointed President of the Sri Lanka Badminton Association (SLBA) in March 2008.
He went on to say " I have been involved in badminton, as a player and an administrator in three continents and I have never seen such a badly run organization."
“We took over an association which no sponsor wanted to give money to, as there were so many financial scams that had been exposed and with no clear plan on how to develop the sport.”
Professor Ranjit de Silva won his first National Badminton title in 1962. A lecturer at the University of Sri Lanka, he went on to do his doctorate in the U.K in 1966 on a scholarship to Cambridge University where he was awarded a Cambridge Blue for his skill on the badminton court.
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After being nominated to represent Sri Lanka at the World Federation Annual General Meeting in 1967, he finished his doctorate and was appointed Vice President of the Badminton Association in 1970.
He then traveled to various parts of the world working and lecturing in Engineering Metallurgy. A world master’s title in badminton adds yet another feather to his already impressive cap.
When asked of what scams he was talking about, He said “Take for example the scandal where the past administrators had sent 65-70 children to Singapore and given them Sri Lankan Colours, they took Rs 65,000 from each player, put them up in horrible accommodation, it was absurd, even the ministry found the number of protests overwhelming.”
“Then there was the case with Yonex, they give $ 100,000 worth of kits for a year, no one knew any details on how these items had been distributed before. And we found that that the programme had been stopped because of the way the former administration had misused those products.”
“But I managed to convince them to forget the past and start off the programme again afresh, and now they send us the kits, this time we distributed them in a very methodical manner, so our friends at Yonex are happy and our national players get the best badminton products in the world, what the world champions use.”
“And then there was an issue where the SLBA had been caught falsifying the votes at the world federation, where our people had got caught submitting false figures at a special general meeting, it was without committee approval or anybody else knowing, when I went for the AGM last year, I was embarrassed in front of representatives from all over the world when they wanted me to make a statement regarding the falsified the votes.”
“And for developing badminton, they were selecting one or two players, and utilized all our resources in promoting them. There were national pools, but the bulk of our resources were used in sending those few players abroad in search of world ranking points. And the in world ranking system, One can get points even if they lose in the first round, so if they pick their tournaments carefully, they can get points without performance, just by participating, which I feel is meaningless, traveling all over the world wasting money, Funded locally by the Ministry, the SLBA or the badminton foundation. These are public funds, and are not meant to be channeled to a few people to waste.”
“So there were a lot of protests in Sri Lanka sent to the ministry on this and the way elections were conducted, and at the end of 2007 the minister initiated inquiries, and some former national players got together and made out a document to the minister stating what was wrong at the SLBA and that he should hand the administration to the ex-national players, and the minister decided to remove the existing executive committee in March 2008, under the sports act. After which he appointed a new committee, all of who are ex-national champions and I was appointed as president and we started to run this from April of 2008.”
When asked if any positives have come of this change, “Why not.” He said,” There has been a major change of policy. We concentrate on the juniors; improvement at grass root level is the most important thing, and we sent our players for eleven trips abroad last year out of which 8 were for the juniors. From our Under 16’s, Achini Ratnasiri has performed the best, we sent her for training to China and she has benefited from it immensely, and an Asian tournament was held here last month and 23 of our players participated, we won 12 medals, and we won the Gold in the girls doubles beating the Indian, Malaysian, Thai and Chinese Taipei pairs, no senior had ever beaten a team member of these four countries, this is the first time in our 50 year history that we have won a gold medal in an Asian championship, no one thought it was possible, in the Under 16 girls event we won Gold and Silver medals, in the team event we won the bronze medal as we met the defending champs Thailand in the semi final, had we met Malaysia we may even have won the Silver, So the standard has really been jacked up.”
“We have sent our junior coaches from our training pools in Kandy, Galle, Ambalangoda and Colombo abroad for training, and the outstation coaches from Jaffna and Hambantota as well, all this is paid for by the SLBA.”
“The next thing we’re doing is holding the Asian Coaching Course in Sri Lanka, and two of our players have been chosen for the scholarship training course for Asia, and our players are due to go on various training stints abroad which is the start of a development programme with the 2012 Olympics in mind.”
“And the biggest boost we have received is that Sri Lanka has been identified by the world body as the number one country in Asia for development, this means that we will be able to get help in various levels for the betterment of the sport in the island."
So it seems like the professor and his team of past national champions has got a clear cut plan on how to push their beloved sport to greater heights in Sri Lanka, to put it in his own words “We have a clear vision with absolute discipline”
So is the SLBA finally on the right track?
Is the next Asian badminton champion just around the corner?
“The last 10 percent of your results take 90 percent of your effort,” replied the professor with a smile, “So we will just have to wait and see. But I do feel we are at least heading in the right direction.”
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