Looks like all is not well at Football House!
The WA Chat Group Football makes heady reading these days! Minister of Sports (MoS) Harin Fernando is in the group and keeps abreast of the goings on at Football House, as well as the various activities of our Football firmament. If he does so assiduously, despite his hectic schedule, he will be quite amused, but also quite concerned, with the absolute mess that the sport is in. Unfortunately, for Football, the MoS, as most of his predecessors did, is too preoccupied with our national pastime, Cricket. Indeed, it looks like the Minister of Finance might consider a Vote on the Subject and allocate funds for Cricket in the next Budget. Such is the national pride at stake that the MoS has decided to use his personal funds to travel to Canberra to help sort out our cricketing woes. An avid willow er quipped that he should have requested Shastri’s help instead, now that the writing is on the wall for the not so poor Hathu!
But, if the MoS and his bosses in government took a short break from the demands of office, to take a closer look at Football, it would make them cry! This is not to cast all blame on the skipper in office, but successive administrations since the 80’s, must take the rap for this sad state of affairs. Since the National Team returned from last SAF tournament, what transpired in Bangladesh and its aftermath has not come under scrutiny. The tour party had a surfeit of senior managers and the celebrated coach Packeer Ali in situ, but not only did they come without medals, but they also came with their reputations in tatters, though the usual punctilious excuses have been made. But all this has now come to a head, with the National Team Management Committee disbanded and brought directly under the FFSL President himself.
It is this very same President who, as the CEO at the time, had charge over the National Team which suffered the ignominy of a 10- 0 defeat to the Maldives in the not too distant past. So, this former national captain knows only too well how poorly prepared we are for international competitions, which translates to the shameful ranking of # 200. On top of that, the DCL Championship which only God knows why Dialog continues to sponsor, has run into heavy weather, following the expulsion of Super Sun SC. The action by FFSL was firm and swift, but with so few sponsors coming into the sport, Football fans feel that, while it is important to punish wrongdoers, efforts should have been made to keep this southern Club in the Football family.
To add insult to injury, vernacular newspapers carried the story that the FFSL intends to act against those Football officials who criticise the Federation and its power brokers! That is a typical reaction from a moribund organisation which will resort to third degree tactics to stifle any commentary on its nefarious activities. Many active Club officials have chided the FFSL for inconsistencies in the handling of the DCL tournament and management of national competitions. And so, the merry-go-round swirls to a dizzying pitch with the SG scrambling to deflect the shots coming from all angles; a one man show that drags the caravan along!
In frustration perhaps, some of the leading Clubs in the island are now re-grouping to form a Clubs Union. These are the Premier Clubs in the country who feel that it is better to organise an Inv i t ation Tournament that will lift organisation and performance standards, than merely subscribing to an under- funded heavily-laden national competition that is conducted purely to maintain the status quo! What will follow is a Players Union, because it is logical that the people who keep the sport alive are the players, who are a most neglected lot. If not for the club owners like Super Sun, there will be no football left in the country. Add the traditional schools bigmatch fixtures, that keep a semblance of a much- loved sport in play.
Mr. Minister, the ball is entrenched in the penalty area for too long. As we are now talking forensics in Cricket, a detailed look at Football is surely on the cards. It behooves the MoS to delve into the many scandals that have rocked this sport and bring it out of the dark ages. A committee of inquiry will expose the fundamental weakness of the Football body, its organizational structure, its management capability, its financial outlook and so on, enabling the MoS to consider the appointment of a Reorganization Committee comprising of FIFA & AFC representatives. Nothing else will put this sport out of its misery. It requires courage born of conviction to overturn this sad story once and for all.