By Harsha Amarasinghe

Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) were dealt a devastating blow as Asia Rugby (AR) yesterday announced that Dubai will host the second leg and third leg of the Asia Rugby Seven Series which had previously been scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka.

Asia Rugby confirmed plans to return to Rugby starting from September this year at the mid-year Council meeting held yesterday (27).

The first leg of the Asia Rugby Seven Series will be kicked off in Korea on September 4 while the second leg and third leg will be held in Dubai from November 19-20 and 26-27 respectively. Asia Rugby has also revealed that the first leg in Korea will also be a World Rugby qualification round SLR President Rizly Illyas revealed that the current situation in Sri Lanka played a major role in them pulling out.

“It’s like this, we had a meeting during which we were clearly told that we have the opportunity to host it, but if we did raise our hand and confirm that we’d host, then there is no way out.

We have to host the tournament one way or the other, but if we fail, then we are risking a possible ban or disqualification from the tournament. We felt that is a risk we could not take because of the current situation; we don’t know whether the Ministry would support us. So we had no choice but to pull out,” Illyas told ‘Daily Mirror’