The All Island Football Championship segment of the National School Games 2016 organized by the Department of Education was concluded at the Prison Grounds in Anuradhapura on the 11th of September 2016.
The tournament spanning across 3 days with matches held at multiple venues throughout Anuradhapura was considered by many to be a failure. Here’s ThePapare.com’s breakdown of the whole fiasco.
About the tournament
Firstly for those unacquainted with this tournament, it is a part of the National School Games which is played out by nearly all the schools in Sri Lanka in the age groups of U15, U17 and U19 for boys and U19 only for girls. Each team has to go through 3 separate levels namely Divisional, Zonal and Provincial where at the end of the day the top 3 teams from each province are selected for the final round – the All Island Championship – which is usually held for nearly 3 days centered around a certain city in Sri Lanka each year.
Lack of proper organization & communication
The morning of the tournament began with massive issues caused to the participating teams due to the lack of proper arrangements by the organizers. All teams had previously been informed to proceed to their respective venues on the 9th to commence the tournament. After turning up at the pre-allocated venues, the teams were then told that they should go to the Public Sports Complex, Anuradhapura to participate in the opening ceremony of the tournament. This causedmuch discomfort on many teams as they had to travel long distances to get to the opening ceremony; especially in the case of U19 boys teams who had to travel a whopping 14km from Rajarata University Grounds in Mihintale to the Anuradhapura Public Sports Complex.
Upon reaching the Public Sports Complex the players were informed that only the U15 and U19 Girls’ teams had to participate in the opening ceremony and only officials of other teams had to be there in order to fill up forms in order to obtain the lunch provided.
It was very shameful and sad to see an all-Island tournament of such a great sport being hampered by such petty incidents and had the organizers given more thought and care to the organizing matters and had maintained proper communication with each other as well as the participating teams, we would have been able to witness a smooth start to the tournament.
Although many of the issues pointed out here are common in all other levels of the competition as well, it would have at least been some comfort for the players who travel hundreds of miles to come to the tournament without proper transport facilities and lodge in substandard conditions had the organizers bothered enough to avoid this from happening.
Speaking to ThePapare.com an official of St. Patrick’s College, Jaffna said;
“Yesterday (10) we finished the semi-final match at 5.00 pm at the Signal Corps. grounds. The organizers told us to then head to the Prison Ground to play the 3rd place match against De Mazenod by 5.30 or we will be given a walkover. How did they expect us to reach the Prison Ground within half an hour? We have come here with the team on three-wheelers. Also our players had played throughout the day and they were very tired. It took a lot of effort to explain to them our situation and postpone the match to today (11). They finally agreed to postpone the match and told us strictly to be at the Prison Ground by 7.30 am. We came at 7.30 am and its 11.30 am now. Now they are telling us to head over to Signal Corps Ground to play the match. Our Zonal level matches are organized better than this.”
Needless to harp on atrocious organizing any further; also readers should know by 5.00 pm on the 10th De Mazenod College had just finished their quarter final match and did not play the semi-final until the next day.
How the organizers assumed that St. Patrick’s had to play De Mazenod for the 3rd place within half an hour is a question that begs an answer.
‘The Lunch’
Each day all the playing teams were provided with packets of rice for lunch.
Even though it is appreciable that the lunch was provided free of charge it would have been even better had the food been in a condition where consumption was possible, after all the hassle in filling up the forms. Teams that could afford to buy lunch refused to eat it while others had to settle for the packet of rice. It was also seen that the organizers and referees received a different packet of rice from that given to the players.
Had the food been the cause for any illness among the players it would have been a very sad story indeed. Surely the organizers need to pay more attention to such delicate matters like this since the victims would be none other than the future of our country.
Ground conditions
The next big disappointment happened with commencement of the U19 tournament.
It was a pitiful sight to see the Rajarata University Ground being divided into 2 small portions in order to play the matches.
The 2 pitches thus created were equivalent to the size of a 7-a-side pitch and when play commenced with 22 players plus a referee being squeezed into the space it was a wonder how anyone managed to play at all!
The conditions of the grounds were also terrible. Barren land enclosed by poorly drawn boundaries is what we saw for a ground.
It is true that being a 3rd world country we do not possess many quality football grounds, but we do possess grounds which are good enough to play including the football complex grounds of the Sri Lankan Football Federation.
Had the organizers thought of hosting the tournament utilizing these island wide venues with the tournament spanning for at least a month (as it should be) rather than cramming everything into 3 days in desert like grounds, we would have been able to witness quality football and a glamorous tournament as well.
Incidents like this leads to questions on whether the organizers actually care about the development of the sport and the players or whether they organize these tournaments simply because they have to?
Match time
As you may be aware the standard time allocated for a football match is 90 minutes.
But in the case of this tournament it is not so. It is acceptable that U15 & U17 players having a game of less than 90 minutes but for U19 teams i.e. the future of Sri Lankan football, the 90 minute game is essential.
Even more dumbfounding was that at each different level the time allocated for a match was different. For example a Divisional or Zonal match will be played for only 30 minutes, which is actually a big joke while Provincials would have something close to 40 minutes.
The All Island tournament went on to extend game time to 1 hour and only the final was played for the full 90 minutes.
The organizers claim it is due to the lack of time that game time is limited to such an extent but most others agree that the tournament could have been held for a longer time in multiple venues throughout the country and given the future of Sri Lankan football a chance to play the full game.
Pitch invasion by Police
The last game of the first day (Under 17) at the Prison Grounds was scheduled to be held between De Mazenod College and Berrewaerst College, Kandy at4.00 pm.
Both teams had to sit in the hot sun the whole day without a single match and when the time came for their match all were surprised to find the ground occupied by the Police who had apparently booked the ground for ‘half an hour’ for their drill practice.
This drill practice went on for one and a half hour delaying the match to 5.30 pm and forcing the teams to play well into the night under bad light conditions.
The police seemed uninterested in the interruption they had caused but the issue is who made the mistake in the booking of grounds ? Had the organizers properly scheduled the matches with ground priority being given to the tournament the poor children would not have had to go through such an ordeal. It was reported that in other venues teams had to wait through the whole day without matches (especially teams with byes) due to the lack of a proper schedule.
Defective trophies
Much to the disgust of all winning teams the tawdry and cheap attitude of the organizers was once again displayed when presenting the championship trophies. All winning teams were presented with a shield with loosely hanging parts which the organizers had not even bothered to properly clean.
Conclusion
For almost every school football player in Sri Lanka (other than the top 50 football playing schools) this is the only tournament they get to play for the whole year. Having this one big opportunity to showcase their talents, the string of mishaps is a huge blow on the players as well as the future of Sri Lankan football.
How are we to expect any development in Sri Lankan football when such big tournaments are organized in a shoddy manner?
Such a big tournament can actually be played in the likeness of the FA Cup tournament organized by the Football Federation of Sri Lanka, which sees the participation of a large number of clubs throughout the island. This would actually help minimize most the above issues and would be very beneficial for the players as well.
At the heart of sports in the country, ThePapare.com speaks for Football’s welfare and its hoped that at least next year’s tournament would be better organized and would give the Sri Lankan Football community a glamorous tournament.
