Sports Ministry puts hurried moves on hold

By Harsha Amarasinghe

A bold decision from the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs will see no Sports Association or Federation being able to change their respective constitutions until the end of their Annual General Meetings.

This has come in the wake of two sports bodies making late attempt to change their respective constitutions favouring the incumbent administration.

It has been reported that the Netball Federation of Sri Lanka had planned to organize a meeting on June 11 in a desperate bid to extend the committee’s tenure. A reliable source claimed that certain representatives of the District Associations were not even willing to take part in it due to the current situation in the country.

“These are all dirty tricks and all they want is to extend their tenure from one year to two years which is ridiculous given that some representatives of District Associations are not even willing to come to Colombo because as we all understand the country is fighting a virus right now,” the source claimed.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) had also scheduled a Special General Meeting to be held on June 20 in an attempt to permit ‘A’ Division founder clubs to get full membership with voting rights. 

However, this idea was questioned by the Western Province Rugby Football Union (WPRFU) despite the SLR having the upper hand with the support of six provinces. 

The Sports Ministry then made it very clear that no association or federation would be able to make amendments for the constitution before their respective Annual General Meetings.

“As per the section 39-1of Sports Law No. 25 of 1973, no sports association or federation shall make amendments to their respective constitutions until the end of their Annual General Meetings,” the Ministry informed all the sports associations and federations in a press release.

Meanwhile, K.D.S. Ruwanchandra, Secretary, Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs told the Daily Mirror that they considered a number of factors before taking this decision.

“When you take a decision of this nature you have to look at various factors and we felt that this was the best decision for the betterment of sports in this country,” Ruwanchandra stated.

Pic caption: K.D.S. Ruwanchandra