A tongue-in-cheek remark brands rugby as a rowdies’ game played by gentlemen. In Sri Lanka the sarcasm has taken a reverse turn meaning rowdies are attempting to administer a gentleman’s game.
It was not the case until 10 or 15 years ago when the backstabbing, back-biting, undercutting, closed door squabbles, dishonesty, vested interests and egoism crept in taking a turn for the worst that led to Sri Lanka, a country once honoured at the world famous Hong Kong Cathay Pacific Sevens, becoming a menace and banned on the international scene leaving its players bundled into touch.
But rugby administration took another twist when Sports Minister Harin Fernando, himself hailing from a rugby playing school St. Joseph’s College, confiscated Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) with proof, although he’s defensive to dabble in cricket, and made matters worse to the point that accusations and counter accusations are floating around in one party’s eagerness to get in and another party’s impending ouster from a comeback.
Minister Fernando’s rugby caretaker the retired naval officer Rear Admiral Shemal Fernando, whose got a full plate in front of him, has now issued a public notice that the election of the next set of office-bearers of SLR will be conducted on July 15 under strict supervision.
With the clock ticking like the final few minutes of a game, the saboteurs are hoping for a crowd invasion, former administrators are casting accusations at the referee while the clean few are hoping for a last minute penalty to save face.
Any which way, rugby has now lost its gentlemanly image as probably the only sport that was not tainted or that its administrators kept everything under wraps or settled differences among themselves for fear of being cast aside as another sinister organization.
The worst thing that could have happened to rugby and the cause of the curse today is that it hit a political course and became the private property of one ruling family who were able to change the goal posts any which way to suit their whims and fancies, even changing match times and venues of club matches and in a most high handed act stripped the Sri Lanka jersey of its Elephant symbol replacing it with the Lion emblem that is associated with another sport, cricket.
All this while a rugby administration at the time ten years ago gave its blessings for reasons best known to its office-bearers. It would be foolish to even compare Sri Lanka rugby with back-to-back World Champions South Africa where the charismatic and post apartheid President Nelson Mandela told his followers in no uncertain terms that the Springbok symbol on the team’s rugby jersey, argued as an emblem of the Whites, cannot be replaced at any cost.
In Sri Lanka anything is possible at any cost.
