HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka, (Reuters) – Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ordered broadcasters to stop playing the official song of the country’s Cricket World Cup campaign because it insults rival teams.
The island nation’s media stopped playing a locally composed song to promote Kumar Sangakarra’s team after the country’s president complained that it contained lyrics insulting Australia, India, New Zealand and England.
The song in the Sinhala language invites fellow Sri Lankans to support the national team by giving bird feed to Australian kangaroos, holding the jaws of New Zealand, shaking English palaces and melting Indian snow mountains.
Rajapaksa, after listening to the song at the opening match in Sri Lanka between the 1996 World Cup winners and Canada on Sunday, told television and radion stations to stop broadcasting it immediately, his office confirmed.
“The President asked media heads why they were telecasting such a song which insults and disgraces fellow cricket-playing nations,” an official at his office told Reuters on Wednesday.
“As a result of that, the media has stopped using the song,” he said.
Sri Lanka’s World Cup director Suraj Dandeniya told Reuters: “It is true that there are some wrong words, insulting other countries. We have been asked to stop this song and we have stopped it.”
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