While scores of Sri Lankans some with question marks against their names have procured visas for whatever the reason, the island’s world champion carrom team is sulking in the doldrums without visas to fly the Lion flag in the United States of America where the 2024 World Cup is to be held.
The nine-member team booked their passage to the USA to defend their world title in San Francisco, California, but six of them were deprived of visas for the championship featuring 20 countries from November 10 to 17.
The rejection of their visas comes at a time shady sports officials of nearly every sport in the country stand accused of globe-trotting with public funds for personal gain, wide-spread corruption, financial rip-offs and even human smuggling with impunity.
“We all had the same documents and we just don’t understand the reason why only three applicants received visas and six were rejected.
“This sport has given the country a World Cup and now we are left in the lurch and without a Sports Minister we don’t know who can intervene”, Joseph Roshita the captain of the team told the Sunday Observer yesterday.
The Sri Lanka men’s team beat India 2-1 in the final of the last World Cup in South Korea in 2018 while the women’s team that had the likes of Roshita ended runners-up.
Sixteen nations contested the 2018 World Cup that included Italy, Switzerland, the USA, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Poland and Malaysia.
The World Cup was skipped in 2022 due to the Covid 19 pandemic and the championship is conducted by the International Carrom Federation.
The Sunday Observer is in possession of an authorized letter issued by the 2024 World Cup host nation’s governing body of the sport, the United States Carrrom Association, inviting and listing the eight players and one manager from Sri Lanka to participate. The letter states that the Sri Lankan team has been duly registered and recognized by the United States Carrom Association and all arrangements made to accommodate the players at Embassy Suites by the Hilton Milpitas Silicon Valley in California.
It was one of the documents submitted by the players to the US embassy in Colombo for visas.
