April 04, Colombo (LNW): When Namal Rajapaksa became the Sports Minister, there was an incident where the Sri Lankan rugby team, which he and his brothers played for at the time, had to pay a fine of 50,000 pounds for fielding foreign players. Although the officials who had taken that careless and indecent decision were responsible for that fine, what those officials did together was to announce that the fine should be deducted from the money Sri Lanka receives internationally.
Even though this matter has been written about and openly discussed, Sri Lankan politicians along with the officials at the Ministry of Sports and the Department of Sports Development have completely turned a blind eye. No action has been taken, and no decision has been made to address the issue.
When Namal Rajapaksa became the Sports Minister, the controversy surrounding the inclusion of foreign players who played alongside him and his brothers had caused major backlash within the rugby community, leading to the rejection of key
figures linked to that administration. Then Namal Rajapaksa went as far as dissolving the existing rugby administration.
But before doing so, he appointed the very individual who was responsible for the original blunder, along with the President of Asia Rugby, to an advisory council for local rugby and even made him the chairman of it.
The current Minister, who is now dancing to the tune of Asia Rugby, and Rizly Illyas, the then-chairman of the administration, were both nominated to the advisory board by the President of Asia Rugby and Minister Namal Rajapaksa. However, the rugby administration, which was constitutionally headed by Illyas at the time, did not tolerate such external interference.
While Namal Rajapaksa, who operated outside the then-official rugby governing body in Sri Lanka, was actively engaging with the President of Asia Rugby and negotiating a new sponsorship deal for Sri Lankan rugby, that very sponsor was later introduced to an Asian tournament through Namal Rajapaksa’s intervention.
Rizly Illyas’s personal criticism of the Asia President over these incidents ultimately led to his ban from rugby.
However, once again, the Sri Lankan rugby community was not given the chance to stand up against the very group that had brought shame to the country by fielding foreign players. It was Namal Rajapaksa himself who blocked that effort. That protest was a response to the serious damage and disrepute caused to Sri
Lanka rugby a stand that was never allowed to gain ground. But the current Sports Minister, disregarding all of that history, went on to appoint the CEO of that same controversial administration as the Chairman of his National Sports Council. At one point, his Ministry Secretary even issued a letter proposing to appoint this individual as the head of Sri Lanka Rugby. However, that move was quietly shelved after the media caught wind of it and began reporting on it from afar.
But even if Namal could not, the current Sports Minister could have seated the Chairman and Executive Officer of the administration that once again brought Sri Lanka into disrepute on the Sri Lankan rugby scene as dignitaries.
Some may find it shameless. But as he called the media and said, it is the arrogance of wanting to do what he wants without considering the mistakes that the media points out.
It was shameless to sit down with the owners of the scandal and express opinions on the same platform. If many thought that this Sports Minister would attack those involved when he spoke in Parliament about Namal Babyla’s £50,000 fine for rugby, it is important to remove it. Moreover, during the Diyagama stadium tour, he pointed out that the names of those involved in this rugby scandal are listed in the Mahinda Rajapaksa Sports Foundation, alongside the fraudulent activities that have occurred there. None of that is true. What is happening here is that the Sports Minister is treating them as elites, not only sitting in the same chamber, but also holding speeches on the same stage with the people who made those allegations, who were proven to be wrong before the world, and who have blamed the loss on rugby in the country and have made rugby suffer for their mistakes.
If those who voted for Malaima did not expect a government or a minister who would better serve the interests of Namal Rajapaksa or the rugby interests of Malik Samarawickrama, then anyone in the government could talk about this. But it is becoming clear that Sugath Thilakaratne does not have such power or ability and is only a chair and a table in the ministry.
We do not know whether President Anura Kumara Dissanayake appointed Sunil Kumara Gamage as the Sports Minister expecting that people he knew would handle sports as they wished. However, Sunil Kumara Gamage’s ability to hold any guilty person accountable, accept them with dignity and present himself as the most upright man is amazing. It is impossible to imagine that there was anyone in the party who could speak so proudly and say that he was doing the right thing while surrounding the guilty. The acting was so realistic. He may have thought that it was okay if he lied to the media in public, thinking that the truth he wrote would be seen as a lie once the story became public. But in reality, Namal and the Sports Minister of the government, who was elected by the majority of the oppressed people, were able to stand together and express their opinions with the people who were not able to bring them to the country as elites due to the disgrace they caused to the country by destroying rugby.
These days, he is trying to prevent rugby from reaching the feet of those with sporting talent in the villages and subordinate it to the majority of the elite sports clubs. The red light that the Sports Minister ignites for the development of rugby in the village has also been lit on Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s Thambuttegama
single signal post. Therefore, we can say that even if Namal Rajapaksa cannot do it as the Sports Minister, Sunil Kumara Gamage is showing that he can do it.
*Adapted from original article, “නාමල්ටත් බැරි වෙච්චි දේ කරන සුනිල්” by Nishman Ranasinghe published on 04/04/2025.
