Commercial patrons, hardcore domestic players and excited schoolboys have jumped on board to be part of what is being touted as the celebration of the centenary year of one of the country’s elite clubs, the Ceylonese Rugby and Football Club (CR and FC), while frontline sports politics will take a back seat.
It comes at a time Sri Lanka’s politicised football set up was branded a pariah by the sport’s world governing body FIFA, the country’s rugby administration and players remain adrift in treacherous international waters and its cricket officials frowned upon after a sleazy and disastrous showing in last October’s World Cup in Australia.
But officials of CR and FC claim that a rugby Sevens event scheduled to run from March 31 to April 2 to coincide with their club centenary will help the country to redeem some lost image on the international scene at Longden Place that they call ‘the home of Sri Lanka rugby’.
“We want to showcase Sri Lanka rugby to a high level,” said Dilroy Fernando, the tournament director and former Sri Lanka fly-half who is one of the most internationally influential veterans with clout that has made him an educator in the parent body World Rugby.
Fernando has been able to entice a women’s club team from rugby heavyweight Australia, two referees from Japan as well as another women’s team from India that he hopes to take up north on a promotional tour as well.
They will join two other teams, one from Thailand and a Combine local outfit that will play against women’s teams from the Army, Navy, Air Force and CR and FC’s own female team that sets them apart from other civilian clubs in the island.
But focus is unlikely to be taken away from 10 schoolboy teams among them Royal College, Isipathana College, St. Peter’s College, Trinity College, Kingswood College, St. Joseph’s College, S. Thomas’ College and Wesley College that are usually listed as crowd-pulling entities.
As the players prepare for the big day along with the eight hardcore clubs, the backstage team of the centenary show cannot hide their emotions over a spectacular cast of sponsors that have rushed in for the eye-catching prized slots available at the host venue.
Among them are shipping giants, electronic magnates, medical experts, a bank and unrivalled gormandizing food producers.
One of the club’s main centenary architects Ted Muttiah, himself a corporate savvy bigwig wasted no time in recalling that CR and FC’s founding concept, its least blemished track record among the rugby fraternity and their overall image to deal with discerning commercial partners put them in good stead to make the celebration a corporate success.
“CR has a strong history of doing the right thing starting from our Founder and that has continued with the quality of men and women in reaching that level of equality along with our association with companies with a good reputation,” said Muttiah the current president of CR and FC.
“Organizations typically choose to sponsor sports related events for one of two reasons. One is brand association with like-minded organizations with strong community respect for values commensurate with sponsors. Second is to position products that resonate with the activity of the club or event like healthy lifestyle through competitive sport.”
With CR being the first rugby club in the country to grant female membership with voting rights and possess the only active civilian team playing in the women’s league, organizers hope that patronage by a wide spectrum of rugby fans from families to groups and individuals will be one of their biggest achievements in the centenary year of the Red Shirts.