New resolutions for sports in 2012!

It is the New Year and hopefully we can leave the vicissitudes of the past behind us and look to the fortunes of the future.

Resolutions must have been made and if the statements emanating from the Ministry of Sports (MOS) are anything to go by, the appointment of supervisors to monitor sports associations effective from first day of the New Year sounds like a clarion call to action. Except that this is nothing new.

It is a known fact that most sports associations have had a kind of dedicated ministry representative for a long time now; as to what their responsibilities were of course is a mute question! So if we are now going to have supervisors, perhaps we could start by naming them and assigning a contact address and telephone number so that those interested in the sport can make a ready connection if and when it became necessary.

In fact this column suggested just that in its last feature on the 29 December; so at least one small step has been taken in the right direction it seems! A web portal for national sports advocated relentlessly in these columns remains a small miracle waiting to happen, but let us leave that benign expectation for another day!

Politicisation of sport

The other overriding concern is of course the politicisation of sport at all levels, something that is now fast becoming the death knell of most sports organisations. The Government must recognise that sports associations are largely independent bodies run by representatives of a particular discipline.

While the MOS must monitor and regulate them and the Sports Law provides ample recourse to that authority, it does not by any stretch of imagination permit the MOS to engage in the running of sports associations. Sadly, the word INTERIM has been given a new interpretation by the MOS, which has irrationally extended and manipulated the Interim Committee cache for its own ends!

The SLC election for instance smacks of the interference of the Government machinery to ensure that its chosen henchmen slip into office indiscriminately. While arguably there are people of calibre in the elected team, the orchestration left many feeling cheated and fearing that more of the old wine will be served in new casks!

Appearances of another Interim Committee under the guise of an election seems to have been foisted on the nation. However, now that the pooja to ward off evil has been duly concluded, let cricket be the winner and let the new team justify the confidence that has been placed on them, even if it is by a mantra!

It is difficult to make a direct connection between a good administration and a fine team; they appear to be mutually exclusive, but there is no gainsaying the fact that one must complement the other – something our lads sorely need given their recent performances.

Need for good governance

To return to the pervasive need for good governance in national sports is an edict all good sportsmen and sportswomen will readily wish for and support without reservation.

In more ways than one, a healthy sports genre which epitomises genuine effort and merit is at the bedrock of an enlightened nation, especially one that aspires to be the ‘Wonder of Asia’. It is therefore incumbent on the highest echelons of Government to further that national aspiration and propagate the sentiment among sports people in particular and the public in general.

A transparent, sincere and spirited body politic can indeed make that difference but it will be compelled to shed the voracious armour that gnaws at all that is noble and worthy in sports and leaves it bereft of the Olympian values that civilised nations uphold and protect.

For a nation that is endeavouring each day to put behind its beleaguered past and emerge as a developed nation, no amount of gamesmanship should inhibit its sporting traditions. Every leader from both from the political and civil divides must further the cause of sports and decry the narrow political chicanery that unravels the very fabric of a nation.

Positive change

Let the doyens who guide our sports associations make a unified resolution to deliver on their promises or devolve their responsibilities when the need arises.  Let them not cling to the sepulchres of their chosen sports but make them an edifice for growth and free spirit.

Let them adopt a selfless attitude and not be mired in the selfish confines of ‘me and no other’! The MOS must monitor this outlook in all its associations starting from the National Olympic Committee (NOC). No one should be big or vain enough to suggest that the sport cannot survive or prosper without their morbid incursions.  The MOS must instil and impose standards by which these associations and their denizens should exist. Unless there is a resolve to deliver on these basic premises, Sri Lanka sports will at best be a flash in the pan. The Minister of Sports is no doubt fully aware of where the cookie crumbles. He must resolve as much as all sports leaders to pursue a regime of positive change or succumb as some of his predecessors have done to the fact that history often does not even bother to record the rants of failure!