Dear Minister Namal
I’ve been a sports journalist, columnist and editor for years nearly twice your age. So, you can forgive me if I focus this ‘SPORTSCOPE’ and write what may seem patronising, in offering some advice. I do so however with the confidence that being a sportsman yourself, having played the game, worn the jersey and taken several crash-tackles you are more than able to take things in the right spirit.
It is an awesome responsibility that you have been asked to carry on your shoulders.Broad and strong as they are from your rugby playing and captaincy days, the duties of Sports and Youth Affairs can be onerous. Challenging and inspiring. Yet, you can make the weight sit lightly on you and enable you to make history by drawing from the lessons one learns from your previous incumbents.
Your rival school’s moto of Disce aut Discede—learn or depart—is a primary lesson that should be heeded. Ministers in the past mistook the powers vested in them, to order others around and tell them what should be done. They could not recognize that those who had toiled hard and played the game and risen to recognized status should be counted upon to advice on what is right and what is wrong. And that if the advice given is not consistent with what the Minister is comfortable with the Minister does what he wants regardless.
The news report that you had invited Mahela and Sanga to the Sports Council is a refreshing move and be seen as the powerful “opening over” that will set the tone for the innings to begin. But the outcome of the match will depend on how well the new “captain” takes advice honestly and fearlessly given.
Many Ministers of the past took their responsibilities far too personally to a point that although they had the ‘councils and advisory groups’, they were used as props to do what the Minister wanted to do, rather than count on the props to do what is best. Being a rugby player you know better than anyone else that the scrum could collapse easily if the ‘props’ are not used well.
Cricket and rugby have had their share of glory in the spotlight of our country’s sporting firmament. But something went radically wrong in the past decade to a point that in the case of cricket especially, we have descended from World Cup winners to World Cup mourners! As with any such demise it is a good time to get the best of our diagnostic cricketing experts and administrators to carry out an honest post-mortem.
The track record has proved that we are not lacking in home-grown talent. Other countries will stake millions of currencies to get our players to play for them. What ails us repeatedly are the diseases that have afflicted successive administrations. So, this is the time to tell the administrators who are not up to it, to apply the Disce aut Discede treatment!
Needless to say, that the same should be applied to rugby as well. Gone are the days when rugby matches were packed to capacity. Yet, the players who emerge from top rugby playing schools are left dispirited when they enter the national scene.
There is no reason that Soccer is unable to be brought into the spotlight. This is a sport that all of us, and I am sure, you Mr. Minister yourself first enjoyed in our respective backyards, in our schools and in our communities. If there is one sport that the millions of families who cast their votes in the elections can easily promote with national encouragement, it would be soccer.
Hundreds and thousands of our girls play netball and compete in athletics. As a sports correspondent who has also covered these sports over five decades, I could count less than two or three Ministers of the past who would have given the time of day to care for female sports. This is an opportunity to breathe fresh air into these activities and promote them.
The administration of sport needs a reawakening. Successive Ministers have made great speeches and declarations of their intentions to bring order, address power-grabs and systemic corruption. But when we look back, these speeches have been no more than outbursts and empty words. It’s time, Mr. Minister for some really capable and reliable persons with integrity to be appointed. And once they are appointed to hold them accountable without ministerial interference at every turn. Often it is the interference by the Minister that has discouraged good people from doing an honest job.
Your Alma Mater S. Thomas’ College, Mt Lavinia has produced the DS and Dudley Senanayakes, SWRD Bandaranaikes, the Choksys, Cassie Chetteys, the GL Peiris’ and their ilk, illustrious persons of outstanding caliber. With that class came a host of sportsmen who had their names etched in the minds of the sporting public.
And in my time there are many of the likes of Vernon Prins, who was known as the Prince of captains, CTA Schaffter, Michael Tissera, who I had the privilege of playing with and against, Lareef Idroos, Trevelyn Edwards, Mano Ponniah, PI Peris, Neil Chanmugam, Anura Tennekoon, Duleep Mendis and Bertie Wijesinha who was my coach who I have played with and against and others who I have covered and many others who do not come to mind.
Of all of them none can match P Saravanamuttu and the family of brothers who gave so much to sports. Today what was the Oval and now aptly renamed P Sara Stadium stands as testament to the contribution of that family, especially to cricket.
In all of these sportsmen, there was one distinguishing credo that has stuck in my mind. They stood solidly to the motto of Esto Perpetua–be Thou forever—and in the words of the Thomian school song –“when the call of duty sounds, we will answer clear.”
This, Mr. Minister, is your opportunity to “answer the call clearly” with integrity, trust and empowerment of those who are able to do good for the country, selflessly without gain. If this bit of advice is followed along with the advice of our experts, I submit that the change you bring about in our sporting world will ring true to Esto Perpetua.