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| Sunday, 9 May 2004 |
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Basketball officials keen only on going abroad! Straight talk by Lal Gunasekera An objective of any national sports organisation or any other sports body for that matter, is to control, standardise, promote, develop and improve a particular sport. But, how many of these controlling bodies could seriously state that these objectives are being followed? there is-infighting going on between officials, mismanagement, unethical practices etc with some of these organisations being dissolved by the Minister of Sports after inquiry with interim committees being appointed. One controlling body that is facing numerous problems due to various factors over the years in the Sri Lanka Basketball Federation (SLBF), which was formed a little over half a century back. This is a sport which is considered to be the second fastest game in the world next to Ics hockey. There was a time in the 1960's through to the early 1980's that the basketball standards in Sri Lanka was pretty high. Many inter-club and inter-school tournaments were conducted successfully, apart from the National Championships and other competitions organised and conducted not only by the SLBF, but also by its affiliates. I can well remember a number of foreign teams touring Sri Lanka with several coaches from the USA coming to conduct coaching camps, seminars etc and the large number of spectators witnessing these games played even late into the night. The SLBF and even the Western Province BA had a very close relationship with the Indian State Associations and there were annual tournaments both in Colombo (at the old Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium and Echelon Square where the Army had its courts) and even touring India. I can even remember Pakistan playing in Colombo at the Depot Police courts. These were in the good "old days" where the administrators included people in the calibre of Lt. Colonel Saverimuttu, Major Paramsothy, Captain Mathew George, K. Nagalingam and Douglas Wise of WPBA fame. They are no longer in the land of the living, but their memory lives on and what they did for basketball in Sri Lanka will never be forgotten. Sri Lanka produced numerous players of repute, too many to mention in this column now. Some of these men's cagers that come to my mind are Percy Perera who is now domiciled in Australia and selected as the " Best Shooter" at Asian Games in the 1960's, Cosmos and Malsiri Perera, Sam Chandrasena, Lt. General Rohan Daluwatte, Major General (Dr.) C. Thurairaja, Nadesan Pillai, Randiligama, Rienzie de Silva, Royden de Silva, Naufer Mahroof, Duncan and Elmo Jayawardene,Kumar Bastianpillai, Nimantha Hathurusinghe, Brigadier Nimal Jayasuriya, Shiraz Fernando, Noel Pereira, Vernon Davidson, Vivien Saverimuttupulle, Rohan Gunaratne, Sam Lovell, Russel Baptist, Nihal Wijeratne. There were several others from the Colombo Municipal Council (basketball in the Playgrounds is now extinct), and even players from Jaffna, Trincomalee and Batticaloa. There were also top women's players and their standards too was quite high. What has happened since then? How many top `cagers' has Sri Lanka produced? What has happened to the All-Star sides that were picked after National Championships? How many foreign sides have played in Sri Lanka? These are some of the questions that readily come to my mind, and if I am correct,the deterioration set in to the SLBF in the mid 1980's. When was the last time that a foreign national or club side played in Sri Lanka? For the last 25 years, except for a team from the Maldive Islands and 1991 SAF Games in Colombo none have played in Sri Lanka. Whose fault is this? However, the number of foreign tours undertaken far exceeds the local tournaments.Officials are only interested in going "on trips". Can the basketball authorities deny this fact? There is no national coach and when there are result-proven coaches, they are not been nominated by the Coaches Association to the SLBF Executive Committee. Why? What are the tournaments that are conducted locally? Police has its Depot Cup, Batticaloa the Weber Cup, Trincomalee the Fr. Herbert Cup, Inter-unit by the services (Army, Navy, Air Force), inter-University, Mercantile's 5-a-side and Inter-club, Super League by Colombo and Inter-School by the Schools BA, are some of them. What about the SLBF? There was no Senior or Junior Nationals in 2002 and only Junior Nationals staged in 2003. Is this sufficient and how are selections made for National sides who regularly go overseas without or hardly proper SLBF conducted tournaments and are the best players selected? The annual general meeting of the SLBF was held end march presided by then President Gamini Nethicumara and even a representative of the Ministry of Sports was present. Nethicumara alleged that the AGM was "unconstitutional", as the Exco meeting summoned for the ratification of the nominations were not sent on a SLBF letterhead and there was no agenda, and the nominations were received at an "unauthorised" address. The SLBF constitution states that nominations have to be sent to the Secretary's address and that the Exco never authorised the change of address. He further said that there was no quorum (which had to be 24 members) to start the AGM, but the members wanted him (Nethicumara) to go ahead with the AGM, despite it being unconstitutional. He also said that the audited accounts cannot be accepted as the auditor was not appointed by the Exco or General Committee and that it was unconstitutional to accept an account made by an unauthorised auditor. Nethicumara did not send his nomination to re-contest for the post of President again, as he did not want to be a "part and parcel" of all these malpractices in the SLBF. However, a senior Vice President was elected, but he too submitted his resignation within a month citing "personal reasons". The Sports Ministry representative who was present at the AGM - did he report back to his Ministry about all these happenings at the AGM? This type of " unconstitutional "AGMs of the SLBF have been going on even from the mid 1990s. The then Additional Secretary of the Sports Ministry held an inquiry into various allegations made against the SLBF and 2000, and the President of the SLBF at that time, Rear Admiral Daya Sandagiri, who was one of the persons who gave evidence, had commented that there were problems within the SLBF and requested that the SLBF be dissolved. That was about four years back, but the problems continue with the sport itself and its players being the sufferers. Now its left for the new Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs, Jeewan Kumaratunga, to intervene and conduct a full scale probe into the activities of the SLBF, and if these allegations are proved beyond any reasonable doubt, dissolve the SLBF, appoint an interim body and later held a proper AGM to elect its office-bearers. Over to you Minister of Sports. |
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