How could sports ministry constitutional reforms transform football fortunes?
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The FFSL Staff
The Minister of Sports (MOS) in a recent newspaper report is quoted as saying that the Sports Law needs change before he can call for elections of Sri Lanka Cricket.
Cricket is of course the national preoccupation but any change in the Sports Law will have implications for all other Sports, especially a National Association like the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL). The FFSL is a repository of free flowing funds. Something on which past football grandmasters have perfected the art of garnering votes at every election by feeding to the misguided aspirations of affiliates all across the country. This stratagem was most evident at the last election with the two gladiators of the sport locking horns in another vicious tango. The President and his band of highwaymen by proxy are thus expected to tow the line and make the right passes from time to time. The vanquished band has not given up the contest and every opposite move is being studied in order to contest the next election with all the armor and panache one can muster!
In the meantime, Sri Lanka once again faced bitter defeat with our U15 lasses thoroughly humiliated in Bhutan. With hardly any preparation, these teams are merely sent to represent the country under the aegis of AFC funds provided for these tours. The National Team also had a ball it is learnt with pedestrian training in Japan and Korea that are supposed to prepare them for the SAFF championship next month in Bangladesh.
A full contingent of travel–free officials accompanied the players on the tour, returning with more disagreements than ever before. So the plane to Dhaka should see these officials jostling for seats, but it is important enough a tour for the President himself to take charge and lead the team as Chief-de-Mission. Now that he is a SWAFF Ex-Co member, a good performance will propel him into the hallowed ranks of the Football World. Even more importantly, SWAFF will mean more funds to the coffers of FFSL, to invest in rebuilding the dwindling football stock in this country. Sadly, more funds do not mean better football, but more frivolous spending and personal aggrandizement on the bandwagon of Arab vote banks. That is an agenda that our officials fervently pursue through the unrealistic and myopic vision 2030 plan; 12 light years away, when most of our present youth squads will be young men and women past their prime!
Which brings us back to the vagaries of Money and Elections? An independent Election Commission is a welcome first step in whetting nominations and supervising elections without the inept machinery of the MOS and its agents! We all know that most affiliated leagues and football clubs are not constitutionally defensible. Most do not have a proper postal address, a shrub playground or a simple back account. They merely rely on the largesse and goodwill of neighbourhood small time businessman and rabid supporters. The specter of paper leagues is a well known phenomenon in football circles and many administrators of old, evolved from these fragile enclaves. Others parachuted through subtle maneuvers, craftily conjured by the powers that be, to bring in Labradors that would bark when asked to do so or charlatans who would do their bidding when signaled to act in their interest. The result is that the composition of the FFSL is amalgam of pseudo-perfect henchman, some of whom have fortuitously played national football; a mandatory measurement for office bearers of a national association.
So any Election Commission has its work cut out for them. They have to throw the constitution edicts at these nominees and make sure that their qualifications and its inherent sources meet stringent qualifying standards for election. They must then ensure that the election is not rife with vote buying and affiliate skulduggery, which allows scumbags to enter the hallowed edifice of the sport, keeping out men and women who matter, but are neither willing nor able to face the street-brawl antics that precedes any husting! The stakes are very high indeed for what is on offer, is access to the gilded corridors of FIFA and AFC and a stone’s throw away from ample moneybags! On top of this, the MOS must take into account the FIFA model constitution that is mothballed in Football House. While the ICC is threatening SLC with sanctions, FIFA is somewhat soft or indifferent to this basic framework from which the FFSL must shift a gear and come of age as the SLF – or Sri Lanka Football; an identity for the future!
Ultimately, the MOS must realize that funds, elections and plans must all dovetail to provide a standard of performance, comparative with the region or the confederation. If Bhutan and Nepal and Myanmar can progress, then Sri Lanka can also progress. We shall not even talk of the Maldives who took us to the cleaners with a 10 – 0 result not long ago! FIFA and AFC must tailor their lavish grants to a performance criteria based on regional competitions. So long as one has a free ride as a venerable stakeholder with the mantra of an equal vote, that expectation remains a dream. For the MOS, the indignity of rugby scores in a football contest does not seem to make a difference. The pleas of this column over many months seeking a semblance of governance, has fallen on deaf ears.
Now we seem to have a legal resolution to any sporting distraction, in our sports arenas. Recently the PM made a financial grant for the benefit of national athletes. He promised a similar lifeline to football when the World Cup was paraded in Colombo. But both the PM and the MOS must realise that it is not money that football is short of, but good people who can put this sport where it belongs. So now, can we take another hard look at the constitution. It’s never too late!