In his dream quest to clean a rotten sports set-up in the country, a high-ranking retired naval officer and PHD Professor encountered a nightmare as he found frogs in swimming pools, haunted structures and decaying equipment and jungle tides engulfing as many as 14 sports complexes scattered across the country.
For Rear Admiral Shemal Fernando nothing could have been worse than seeing the neglect of sporting properties worth millions of rupees lying abandoned while the country’s talented athletes were struggling to come to grips with the basic requirements as some of them dropped by the wayside, others vanished overseas and the survivors could only hope and pray for a messiah to lead them to a promised land.
When he took over as the country’s Sports Director in the Ministry of Sports the credentials of Rear Admiral Shemal Fernando, a former Royal College 400-metre athlete, were barely known but he wasted no time in getting down to business and working almost 365 days a year.
He was picked from among some 300 seekers who wanted the job and all Rear Admiral Fernando did at his interview in front of a high-profile government panel was to submit a nine-point Plan that is followed by other countries with adjustments to suit Sri Lanka.
The 14 dilapidated sports complexes are now functioning along with several other successful projects but Fernando also knows that more has to be done in a country where all-talk and no-results is the name of the game.
“With limited facilities and resources at my disposal I have had the satisfaction of implementing most of what I have envisaged.
“I am happy and content that I have tried and done my level best and it has been a God-given opportunity for me”, said Rear Admiral Fernando in an interview with the Sunday Observer.
Unlike some of his predecessors Fernando does not wish to see himself as the rattling kind but instead prefers to go into the heart of the athlete and in a most humble way question the conscience of the heads of sports governing bodies numbering 73 for their lapses.
From an annual government budget allocation of Rs.2.6 billion which is just 0.3 percent of the country’s allocation, Fernando has had to ensure that 50 percent of it is used for sports development and welfare of personnel employed in its day to day affairs and the balance for the welfare of athletes and their participation at international meets.
He also found himself in a situation where he had to pay for the sins and lapses of athletics officials who panicked and came up to him for a whopping Rs.35 million at the last minute so 12 Under-20 athletes and five officials could make it to the World Junior Athletics in Peru, geographically at the other end of the world.
Having already provided Rs.60 million for the welfare and foreign travel of senior athletes over the past eight months, Fernando was in a tight corner and at the very end of budget allocations.
He faced media questions as the junior athletes were on the verge of being held back without funds. While the Athletics Association in addition to waiting for the last minute to request for funds and their failure to tap sponsors stood in the way, Fernando somehow provided Rs.29 million for the junior contingent for an event in which Sri Lanka has never been able to win a medal.
Months before the Paris Olympics last month, Fernando took up the cause of Para and able-bodied athletes who won medals at the Asian Athletics Championship last year but were never rewarded as promised. Pleading he had to convince Sports Minister at the time Harin Fernando to step in and funds to the tune of Rs. 128 million was doled out for the medal winners, four of them Paris bound who also received allowances.
Some of Fernando’s worst headaches came in the form of overcoming hurdles in pushing through with Reforms as politically flavoured power-struggles sabotaged its implementation in rugby, netball, cycling and motor-racing that have been taken away from its keepers and brought under his care.
With the conflict in rugby overshadowing the rest, Fernando now contends that a Supreme Court ruling could sort out the sticking points for a new Constitution that has been called for by World Rugby which has given Sri Lanka time till November to make the changes.
“What I foresee is that everyone has realized the gravity of the mistakes they have made as individuals while World Rugby is adamant that we should make this change in the best interest of the country and players”, said Fernando who contends that a positive outcome from rugby will make netball, cycling and motor-racing also fall in line.
One of the most neglected sports, hockey, has also been fortunate that Fernando came along as it now has a new turf in Colombo and one nearing completion in Matale which is considered the home of the stick.
Having hobnobbed with the world’s elite athletes and worked as an ambassador for Caritas International, a Catholic-inspired humanitarian organization, Fernando also had to put up with the backward nature of Sri Lankan sports officials and bring them out from their reclusive closed-door type of scenario while pushing them to play a more active role in the welfare of athletes while at the same time rewarding successful coaches.
He has already earmarked some 800 second tier athletes under a scheme called Kreeda Shakthi or strength in sports while picking 58 more with potential for the future in targeting the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles in a project called Road to Olympics.
