Editorial

13th December1998

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Spoiling sports

All Australia is reportedly in a mood of national mourning after last week's disclosure by two modern day cricketing heroes Shane Warne and Mark Waugh that they accepted money from an illegal bookmaker during Australia's last tour of Sri Lanka.

The collective Australian conscience is stricken and the nation has embarked on a sombre soul searching exercise.

Do such pangs of conscience bother the Sri Lankan sporting establishment when it is embroiled in money controversies? Not by a long shot, it appears. Sport here in Sri Lanka is being tainted by money and the mercenary culture all the time, but who is bothered anyway?

The most nauseating example would be the outrageous selection criteria for the national swimming team which represented the country at the Asian games in Bangkok.

A short recap of the events that led to the selection of the national swimming team for the Asian games will be as follows. The governing body for the sport in Sri Lanka, the National Amateur Aquatic Sports Union (NAASU) decided that it will not recommend any swimmers for the Asian games because they were all sub-standard.

Notwithstanding that recommendation, the Sports Ministry decided to make up a squad of swimmers for the Asian games with the proviso that they pay for their own tickets.

One swimmer was personally recommended by a VVIP due to personal connections.

The end result is that the swimmers ended up coming last in their heats in Bangkok, quite predictably of course.

The long and the short of it was that national colours were sold to the highest bidders. So with this move sports takes the same dive into officially sanctioned monetary favouritism that is becoming the norm in this land. It's an old story as far as the tender processes for most state endeavours are concerned. Though the tender process is laid out on paper , the final tender sweepstakes are decided these days by the presiding deity of the government.

Which god or goddess of the state recommended that Sri Lankan colours be sold to certain favoured individuals?

All this stuff may be old hat as far as the country's general political ethos is concerned, as it's only too well known that national assets from ports to mineral sands are now up for grabs and for sale. But, sports is the last bastion of , well, sportsmanship, even though normally that verity should have gone unstated.

Tenders may go to the dogs, but sports is where fairplay has come to be expected. Aphorisms such as "level playing field'' etc., ironically enough originate from the arena of sportsmanship.

But now that bastion has been breached, and the common man would wonder whether anything at all is left sacrosanct in this madly mercenary ethos.

The potentates and the panjandrums award colours and pretend that it's all in the course of things. But, there is a method in this madness, because national colours are sold at a price for certain reasons. The recipients, whether they finished at the end of their heats or not, are deemed to have represented their countries. Universities both here and abroad accord preference to the "extra curricular '' of those who have represented the national side. National colours provide a shorter route to scholarships and university bursaries, so those who win colours by fair means or foul have in a manner of speaking got it made.

How does all this make the poor man and woman feel? Probably it's best that that is not elaborated, but this state of affairs says a lot about our national values. In other recent sporting highlights, the national badminton association tried to smuggle a girl with the boys team because she was the daughter of an official. Then there was the Susanthika soap opera which still goes on because a higher up feels aggrieved about a love affair gone sour.

It was said the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. The playing fields of Sri Lanka have the barbarians at their gate, so how is the battle of Sri Lanka going to be won? With all the hanky panky going on in the playing fields of Colombo's higher ups and powers that be, that battle may now be as good as lost.

Political Column

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