Gala football colours nite and awards ceremony today

By Susil Premalal

Football Sri Lanka (FSL) will host a gala Football Colours Nite and Awards Ceremony for the first time in its history at Monarch Imperial at Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte today at 7.00p.m.
The ceremony is part of FSL President Umar Jaswar’s ‘Restart Football’ concept.

The colours and awards ceremony will be held under the patronage of Sports Miniser Namal Rajapaksa.

The 18-member Sri Lanka team, which won the SAARC Gold Cup football tournament in 1995, will be awarded Rs 100,000 each.  The Sri Lanka national football pool will receive Sri Lanka colours and bonuses.

All 10 teams who took part in the Lanka Super League semi-professional football tournament (2021) will also receive cash awards. The teams which competed in the LSL from April 2021 to January 2022 will receive a total of Rs 20 million.

Accordingly the ten teams will receive the following amounts: champions Blue Star SC Rs 5 million, runners-up Sea Hawks SC Rs 3.5m, third placed Colombo FC Rs 2.75m, fourth placed Renown SC Rs 2.5m, fifth placed Up Country Lions SC Rs 2.25m, sixth placed Red Star FC Rs 2m, seventh placed Defenders FC Rs 1.75m, eighth placed New Youngs FC Rs 1.5m, ninth placed Ratnam SC Rs 1.25m and tenth placed Blue Eagles SC Rs 1m.

This is the highest cash award (Rs. 20.37m total amount) in football history in the country given to a 10th placed team. The tournament’s Golden Boot award will be presented to Shenal Sandesh of Blue Star who scored a total of 10 goals.

The inaugural Inter-Province Football tournament scheduled to begin on February 25 will also be launched, FSL president Jaswar Umar told the Daily Mirror.