Schoolboys from as many as 83 rugby playing schools have been held to ransom by striking referees following an assault on one of their members making a mockery of sports promotion in the country where strikes and trade union actions are despised and frowned upon.
In an age when rogue conduct and rampant corruption among so-called caretakers of sports in the country rule the roost, schoolboys have been made pawns, their keepers become showcase puppets and their commercial partners turned into sadists while thugs call the shots and referees resort to a boycott of rugby, a sport they claim to foster and even earn from.
The disruption came barely a month after the new inter-school rugby season was launched with players paraded on stage and the Ministers of Education and Sports gracing the occasion making speeches promising fair-play and accountability.
But all bought to zero with three match officials brutalized by thug supporters of one school Science College last Sunday at the Air Force ground at Ratmalana considered the safest of all venues without any pre-match complaints.
With a new set of referees now running the show and their decisions respected by players over the past few years, resorting to trade union action made them pathetically ordinary in their off-field conduct unbecoming of match officials who are paid to perform a task.
The contention is that had the referees been bold enough as they are on the field of play, they should have taught Science College a lesson and refused to blow only their matches and not penalize other schools that had nothing to do with last Sunday’s incident.
The so-called Sri Lanka Schools Rugby Football Association, the caretaker of the country’s rugby cradle, and their new found Advisors did very little to prevent the disruption of matches living up to a puppet or self-professed image while hundreds of schoolboys who were put through hard rigorous pre-season training for the occasion were left jaded.
The action taken by the referees smacked of typical Sri Lanka style where the rest have to pay for the sins of one man or individuals fighting for their rights at the expense of the people.
What cannot be hidden from the truth is that the referees had hit the players of 83 schools below the belt in a spoil-sport move most foul despite police moving in swiftly and arresting the assailants who could face charges of criminal assault.
