Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa has temporarily suspended Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) and appointed Director General of the Department of Sports Development, Amal Edirisuriya as the competent authority with effect from Friday.
According to the gazette notification, Edirisuriya has been directed to conduct “administrative and other required proceedings and to call for and hold the relevant elections as well as to perform the activities of the said national sports association until then as the temporary procedure.”
“The decision to suspend SLR was taken after getting the opinion of the Attorney General. A working committee will be appointed on Monday. The league tournament will continue as scheduled,” Edirisuriya told the Sunday Observer. Earlier in December, the sports minister appointed a Rugby Advisory Committee headed by Asanga Seneviratne.
The main reason for the administrative order issued by the Sports Minister was because of SLR’s failure to adhere to directives of the ministry by readmitting affiliates who had been suspended in 2020 for non-payment of subscriptions. The issue arose before the SLR annual general meeting when it was determined that the Western Province Rugby Football Union (WPRFU), Uva, Ruhuna and Universities associations were disqualified from voting. But in gross violation of the ministry directive, they had been readmitted by the SLR without Ministry approval.
“If a member doesn’t pay the subscription, he is struck off. Then he has to reapply and join as a new member and the committee has the discretion whether to allow him to join or not. That is clearly mentioned in our Constitution,” explained Havelock SC president Thusitha Peiris.
He also questioned the legality of the tournament and the decisions taken by SLR during the last two years. “In technical terms when we submit our registration to SLR they ask which province you belong to. We put Western Province. If the Western Province is suspended how are we playing a league? There is a big question mark there,” said Peiris, a former SLR secretary.
“At the end of day, although we are linked to the province, we are founder clubs of SLR. We also have the right to represent and play. There are no two words about it. We have already played the tournament. The issue is some of the key decisions taken during the last one and half years at the (SLR) Council. Most of these decisions are proposed and seconded by the provinces and WPRFU is there in almost every decision. If WPRFU is null and void, what is going to happen to those decisions? Are they going to reverse it?” he queried.
Immediate past president of SLR Lasitha Gunaratne also weighed into the debate by reiterating the need for founding clubs to be given a greater say than provincial unions in the governance of rugby in the country.
Proposals to amend the SLR constitution had been sent in March 2020 but it was scuttled because of the viral outbreak and a Sports Ministry circular which prevented a Special General Meeting being held on July 20 for this purpose before the Annual General Meeting scheduled for August 29.
Gunaratne had been pitching to give the founding ‘A’ division clubs their rightful place in the decision-making body for rugby even during his time as member of the rugby interim committee under Dr Maiya Gunasekera long before he took over as SLR president. “We also got the majority of the Provincial Unions to support this amendment which could have been taken up at the AGM,” he said.
The WPRFU also appointed a three-man committee to make recommendations to amend the SLR constitution but their report never saw the light of day. The eight Founder Clubs comprising the three Services - Army, Navy and Air Force - Police, CR&FC, CH&FC, Havelocks and Kandy SC have been sidelined since the introduction of the provincial system of rugby administration in 1992.