Sri Lanka Football, nobody's child!

The buzz in media circles and household verandahs may have been Sri Lanka’s mauling in the ODI in New Zealand followed by the washout, but the constant dirge over last month must surely be the ignominy of the FIFA suspension of Sri Lanka Football. 

To add insult to injury, the FFSL President was remanded over a personal matter bringing the establishment to a virtual grinding halt. Some temporary measures hastily put together by the Ministry of Sports (MOS) keep Football House afloat but even the staff are uneasy; would salaries would be paid in March with the looming New Year celebrations in April staring them in the face!

So, what has befallen this once popular sport played in fields and playgrounds across the island? What malefic influence has brought about such a calamitous trend that only seems to go from bad to worse? 

The MOS, as it is prone to do, has appointed yet another commission, but a walk in the park will tell the Minister what he needs to know; in fact, he has waxed eloquent that corruption is the bane of all sports and Football it is that takes the cake! Advised by no less a personality than Captain Cool himself who heads the National Sports Council, the Minister cannot be short of advice on what must be done. But like many Ministers before him, making poor passes and inept shots at goal have been the order of the day. That Sri Lanka is at the bottom of the rankings is no surprise, though it had the distinction of putting one of its famous icons into the FIFA Executive Committee several moons ago!

If one were to review the modern Football passage in Sri Lanka, one can go back to the early 90s, when FFSL President Weerasinghe Mallimarachi was assassinated in an LTTE bomb attack, that also accounted for one of Sri Lanka’s illustrious sons, Gamini Dissanayake. Manilal Fernando stepped into the breach and oversaw Sri Lanka’s Football fortunes for a greater part of 20 years or more, providing the kind of benevolent leadership that ensued unbridled authority and made him a colossus in the Asian and International Football confluence. Quickly gaining favor with FIFA godfather Sepp Blatter, Manilal was able to build a much-needed infrastructure in Sri Lanka. The Football House at Independence Avenue stands to this day as a testimony to his unparalleled efforts. Sadly, his romance with the Qatari Bin Amman in the FIFA Presidential stakes brought about a painful reversal and ultimately a ban for life, that resonates through the corridors of local football, even now.

Until the year 2013, Manilal’s writ over football in Sri Lanka prevailed. Through an ingenious Management Committee, Manilal oversaw several successive administrations that endured harmoniously, if not effectively, until Ranjith Rodrigo took office having patiently waited his turn in the pecking order. Rodrigo quickly moved to assert his place as FFSL President unlike his predecessors, and played into the charms of FIFA strongman Blatter who was also unceremoniously ousted by a famous sting operation that brought the present incumbent Gianni Infantino to office! In the local annual hustings, Anura De Silva who Rodrigo backed as CEO, swept aside his mentor to take the Presidency. 

In turn, Jaswar Umar who enjoyed the favours of both De Silva and Rodrigo, maneuvered his way past several offside traps to emerge victorious at the one but last FFSL elections. Umar it is claimed, became an affable dictator of sorts, cleverly establishing powerful political links to supplant his authority on the sport. With cerebral aplomb, he ran football house in a crafty one-man operation, it is said! Football observers and disillusioned administrators were quick to point out what they describe as excesses and rampant mismanagement that eventually drew the MOS into the convoluted axis of the Football administration.

Gazette notifications became the order of the day and Umar’s efforts of introducing the long-delayed FIFA statutes into the labyrinth of the FFSL constitutional framework ran aground with protests and legal interventions confounding all and sundry. The MOS turning and twisting in its wake finally barred Umar from contesting a haplessly convened election in January 2023. The contenders closed ranks and brought to the battleground a political maverick in Jeyaram Sri Ranga who won by a slim majority under the existent FFSL constitution, ignoring the FIFA-inspired statutes that had been cast aside. That was the last straw! FIFA at the end of its tether, imposed a suspension and relegated Sri Lanka to purgatory until greater counsel prevailed. This impasse had now reached the highest echelons of the land. As it happened with the country at large with the IMF, it now remains for a painful negotiation with FIFA to come to pass!

While all this tug-of-war takes place, a question that looms ahead is the technical aspect of the game and the standard Sri Lanka Football should aspire to! If the FIFA ranking is anything to go by, one might say that we are in a hopeless state. But it may not be as bad as it seems. The plain truth is that most nations have progressed, while we have remained stagnant, not capitalizing on the technical inputs that FIFA and AFC have provided to us from time to time. What our administrators have done instead, is revel in the jaunts and festivities that Football offers the world over. 

One may even argue that FIFA does not critically examine how the money they grant, is put to use. Therefore, there is a scramble to get into office and pretend that the technical development is being pursued. World Football has progressed in leaps and bounds. One has only to watch the British Premier League to understand what intensity in planning and execution goes into each team. We have not even scratched the surface or to put it mildly, understood the fundamentals of such an exercise. Any new regime we inherit will need to obtain foreign expertise if they are serious about competing with international teams, even in our SAFF region. Tiny Maldives is an example and the 10 – Nil beating Sri Lanka suffered, still remains fresh in the minds of local football followers.

Happily, one can still see youth and adult players frequenting the parks and playgrounds oblivious to the goings on at Football House, the MOS or FIFA and AFC. For them, what matters is the round ball that is passed adroitly to reach the goal. FIFA supports its family of affiliates over the world with financial and technical support next to none. Its successful World Cup machine produces large financial proceeds that go to develop and sustain the football brand over the world. It is rumored that Sri Lanka stands to lose approx. UD$ 8M until the next World Cup comes along. That is a sad story and therein lies the crunch. For many nations such as Sri Lanka, this is also the lucre that in the wrong hands spells disaster. Sri Lanka needs to reinvent its governance model to deal with such attractive propositions. The FIFA NORMALIZATION MODEL, many feel, will help establish the system change that the ordinary footballer in the street prays for. Whether that plea will be answered, is as good as your guess and mine!

By Trevor Reckerman