Will play only if you pay!
‘The Business of Sports,’ the fortnightly column that appears every other Thursday returns after a festive break. This is Feature #22, continuing to seek a greater public engagement in our national sports and a sporting surveillance on what goes on away from the arenas and behind the scenes. Readers are invited to share their views and express their opinion by writing to editor@ft.lk so that greater public participation in sports affairs can emerge and embolden all sportsmen and women in Sri Lanka.
The Asian Athletic Championship is in full swing even as this commentary goes to press. Laudable that the Ministry of Sports (MOS) was able to convince the Asian Athletic bosses that the electoral musical chair was an internal matter that needed to be orchestrated and that the championships itself was not compromised in any way.
And so our young guns have a home turf to excel in though reports indicate that it does not auger well for Sri Lanka in terms of performance. The MOS however has done what it does best; offer those who win medals, handsome cash awards as if that alone is a magnet for outstanding achievement.
In a recent interview, the MOS lamented that sportsmen and sportswomen should put country before money and went on to express the concerns about cricket and rugby in particular. His comments are indeed forthright and will touch the purist to the quick.
But what is sad is that the MOS is not focusing on creating a culture that manifests the credo that it is want to propagate. The lucre thrown before its young athletes is one such poor example. It would have been better for the MOS to promise national recognition and provide long term sports development via scholarships to those who would bring in medals rather than highlighting the cash rewards.
Easier said than done
Easier said than done for sure! With Sri Lanka sports benchmarked around cricket and to a lesser degree, rugby, the example of country before money is a game of diminishing returns for sports in general. It will be argued no doubt that professional sport is all about return on sweat and not just on a good fellow but poor guy syndrome.
Money will determine the investment in time, energy and passion, once the prospect of playing for the country has been fulfilled and put to rest. While there are examples from England and Australia, where its star players value the continuance of playing for their country and balance that honour with limited representation in the IPL like money machines, for countries such as Sri Lanka, money represents the ultimate accolade, as we can see across the national landscape.
The effect it has had on our cricketing fortunes is now becoming apparent and the quality coming out of the schools leaves much to be desired. In the more developed nations, the economic value added is more evenly spread and one sun burst does not dim the more honourable mantra of wearing the baggy cap or the tousled national jersey.
In Sri Lanka, national selection is becoming a conduit to the gaming machines that are looking for hair raising merchandise to waylay and exploit.
And therefore the junior sportsmen and sportswomen are from an early age fed with a star in the firmament gaze that implies the belief that effort and endurance is justified once the limelight is achieved. Commercial demands are then put in place by a growing breed of sports managers. It thus becomes important for the MOS to address this ambivalence in the implementation of its Sports Policy.
Merely having the legislature passed in Parliament is the easy part. How it is translated at the base levels is what is critically important. This is why we have regularly discussed in this column the need for the MOS and the MOE (Ministry of Education) to collaborate very closely in the Junior Sports arena.
Today, it is extremely common to see the larger better endowed schools poach talented sports-kids from the lesser privileged schools through what is ostensibly regarded as a sports scholarship. Argue that this is a good thing and indeed it is, if not for the fact that this is where the first commercial seedlings are planted.
Any school that does not follow this route is relegated quickly to the sidelines where parental and old boy pressure takes its toll. A rudimentary assessment of schools cricket and rugby clearly demonstrates the degree to which this monetary avalanche is rolling and any other sport that does not follow suit and adopts a commercial mindset, is soon left behind.
Blood money
Obviously, even sports cannot escape the national psyche of blood money. We have seen the effect of stock market manipulations that have all but left our bourse bereft of any credibility. It is this very mindset that affects sports, especially when national gladiators enter the fray and manipulate the sport to meet their own corrupt objectives.
We have seen even international icons like Hans Cronje fall prey to the lure of money and there are many examples of present day sportsman more hooked on amassing unbridled wealth and influence never before seen. We are now privy to the T20 becoming another national imperative with Sri Lanka Tourism becoming the major sponsor with the Treasury itself involved in converting the event into a major promotional campaign. The Carlton Sevens also attracts the largesse of several Government institutions.
The MOS in the meantime speaks of a sports hub, whatever for no one really knows. Does it suggest that we will be a supply chain of sports resources for others to tap into? Or does it mean that we will be event manage all major sports championships here in our little corner of the world?
We need not be carried away by such grandiose juggernauts for these are what precisely mislead our sports champions as well as our sports administrators. Because, if we believe that is the only way to go, then there is no reason to penalise the sports person when he or she quickly transforms from a national talent to a personal asset.
There is therefore a clear cultural aspect emerging in sport that must be addressed. As a nation we can let the process enlarge and grow and take its course allowing the freedom (of the wild ass) to prevail or influence this paradigm by carefully orchestrating an awareness that sports must bring its just rewards without consuming the soul of its principal proponents.
For that to happen, men and women of integrity must take their rightful place in the sports administration of this country. We must also recognise that professional sport like most other professions must offer a commensurate benefit. It cannot rest assuredly on the pedestal of honour alone. It must be burnished with the rewards that preserve that honour and prevent those sportsmen and sportswomen from passing into oblivion. Surely, they must be the revered and rewarded standard bearers of our nation.
