Sri Lanka will never ever be able to win a World Cup in rugby but the William Webb Ellis trophy that is won at the cost of blood, bones and limb found itself a tool in the hands of political egoism and pompous rhetoric after it arrived in the island.
Not a single elected official of Sri Lanka Rugby, the parent body of the sport in the country was at hand to play a part or even cast eyes on the trophy while commercial godfathers and spokespersons stole the show in a sport that has a 140-year history in the country.
Photographers and reporters invited for what was said to be a Press conference at one of the public functions with the World Cup, found the event turned into a photo shoot for corporate adults that crowded around the trophy followed by hundreds of curious school children posing for a picture.
Invited mainstream media personnel even got into arguments with stage managers over protocol arrangements while some photographers and journalists left the scene at the Excel World premises in Colombo unable to fathom the confusion or get their desired pictures for the truest of rugby followers.
Unable to bring about sanity the show’s presenter in a tongue-in-cheek remark declared that each schoolboy and girl will have just “half a second” to climb on stage and pose for a picture with the World Cup.
Ironically the World Cup came to be put on display at a time a scrum and scramble among two factions claiming the sport as theirs drags on for months like never before in the country.
One faction takes the form of a shadowy group headed by ex-presidents of Sri Lanka Rugby and the other an elected Membership of the sport and thereby hangs a tale of two worlds.
But the biggest question surrounding rugby’s sacred chalice entering the shores of Sri Lanka without the patronage of the island’s ‘game keeper’ Sri Lanka Rugby, will not provide a comprehensive answer as the goal posts keep shifting.
“What you have seen happen is clear politics not to invite Sri Lanka Rugby to be part of the process. This is disturbing and shameful. Even common courtesy of speaking to us was not extended,” said Illyas the current head of Sri Lanka Rugby.
His detractors and opponents claim he is a non-entity cold shouldered by Asia Rugby due to a controversial suspension, but Illyas says he’s very much the legitimate and elected head of Sri Lanka Rugby.
France will host the World Cup matches in September this year with the defending champions and 2019 winners being South Africa, a country that refused to be sucked into internal politics thanks to its late charismatic President Nelson Mandela who stood on the winning podium in 1995 when the Rainbow nation taught the world a lesson.