For too long has Sri Lanka been appointing and dismissing sports ministers by the dozens and it is high time that sports which is about fair-play and justice get a person who is able to bring about a clean administration where all sportsmen and women can look forward to a future.
For this to become a reality may I suggest to President Maithripala Sirisena or whoever is responsible for appointing ministers to immediately install Ranjan Ramanayake as Sri Lanka’s sports minister.
Ramanayake has been consistently fighting for justice and fair-play and it is only appropriate that he gets this most important portfolio. Presently he is also fiercely independent and has no vested interests or family agenda. And as for money, he is an actor and gets his income from the cinema industry. He does not have to enter the sports arena or a ministry to get the good things in life.
But the problem for Sri Lanka is that it is having far too many crusaders and nothing happens. Ramanayake has pulled out his machine gun like many scribes in the past have done, but what is the use once the firing stops. He too will become an also-ran like the rest if he cannot be the sports minister. Criticizing and exposing and basking in media publicity alone won’t solve the problem. Ramanayake has to get involved or else he’ll be better off obtaining membership in the JVP.
Leave aside cricket which everyone seems to be interested in for obvious reasons. What about the allegations of corruption in other sports bodies that carry on with impunity just because, unlike cricket, the people in this country have no pride in those sports or don’t follow it with the same passion that cricket is followed.
Athletes and officials go to the Olympics, Asian Games, South Asian Games,Commonwealth Games and other world meets by the plane loads and return with disastrous results. Take the case of this month’s Commonwealth Games where a contingent of 85 took wing. Apart from the boxers and weight-lifters, the Games were a disaster. Does anyone care about what takes place in sports like swimming, track and field and badminton which were horrible at the Commonwealth Games?
Swimming and badminton are being monopolized by families. Rugby interest in this country is only being kept alive by schoolboys. The club rugby scene is as bad as dead and the Sri Lanka team is doomed the moment it leaves the shores for an overseas competition and we have had sports minister after sports minister come and go.
I know the majority of sports followers in this country know that if only Ranjan Ramanayake is made the sports minister he will definitely clean up the rot that is taking place in sports administration in this country. If he does not succeed then all his crusades will be brought to zero and the media which pumps him will have to learn a lesson or two.
What did the former minister of sports Dayasiri Jayasekera do other than approve the names of sports teams sent to him for approval and preside at ceremonial functions in the same way that his predecessors did. He also hugged the limelight and hobnobbed with other sports celebrities. He is not around and is probably laughing it away. The only decision that he made was to amend this thing called the Sports Law so that presidents and secretaries of sports bodies with questionable identities can stay on for another two-year term.
Looking back at all what has happened to sports over the past 20 years and the number of sports ministers who occupied the chair and helped themselves to the good things in life, it is high time that the country has a blemish-free sports minister and if Ranjan Ramanayake is the messiah, so be it.
Let Ranjan Ramanayake start with sports and let him create the climate for decent and honest people to enter the field and run all sports in this country. I must also emphasize that just because a man or a woman has represented his or her country in sport it does not mean that they are the ones who make the best administrators. There are non-players who make fine administrators as there are gentlemen who have successfully indulged in sport and deserve their place in administration.
Kennedy Bede Perera
Negombo