The Director General (DG) of Sports of the Ministry of Sports Prof. Rear Admiral Shemal Fernando (Retd.) says that World Rugby (WR) has granted a grace period till 8 November for Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) to introduce requisite amendments to its constitution and hold its stalled Annual General Meeting (AGM).
Speaking to The Daily Morning Sports, on the sidelines of a media briefing held at the Ministry yesterday (5) linked to the ‘Sri Lanka Sports Fiesta’ – a celebration of sports and entertainment, he said that the election of office bearers to SLR will be held shortly.
He said that holding of the Special General Meeting (SGM) which was fixed for 15 July and the AGM, had been deferred due to seven suspended Provincial Unions having filed a lawsuit before the Court of Appeal against the Sports Ministry.
The Provincial Unions have prayed the Court that the DG as the Competent Authority has no authority to introduce amendments to the SLR constitution and that he has only been authorised by the Sports Minister to supervise the SGM and the AGM.
Pressing issues
Prof. Fernando said that following submissions made by the Sports Ministry, the game’s world governing body had consented to grant a grace period of around 60-days for the Ministry and SLR to coordinate matters and resolve pressing issues related to changes to the constitution and the staging of the AGM.
Asked whether the Ministry was hopeful of a swift resolution to the ongoing litigation filed against it by several Provincial Unions, the DG expressed hope that was their end goal as far as rugby is concerned.
However, he could not be drawn on what the subsequent ramifications for rugby in the country would be beyond the grace period set forth by WR, if his Ministry is unable to conduct the election of office bearers to SLR.
The SLR is currently functioning under the Ministry DG, after it was dissolved by the Sports Minister on 29 May, over its failure to conduct its AGM before the annual cutoff date 31 May.
Sports Fiesta not hampered
Meanwhile, the DG added that the staging of the inaugural ‘Sri Lanka Sports Fiesta from 16-18 August in Colombo encompassing seven sports, will not be hindered in anyway due to the dissolution of two sports bodies SLR and the Netball Federation of Sri Lanka (NFSL).
He insisted that despite the two aforesaid sports bodies being temporarily dissolved, the Ministry under his helm was carrying out necessary day-to-day operations.
He noted that the dissolution will not have any adverse impact on the upcoming event which will be free of charge for spectators.
The mega sporting event is set to feature over 3000 athletes competing in seven team sports including cricket, rugby, football, volleyball, netball, hockey and basketball.
Cricket matches are to be played at the Bloomfield and Thurstan grounds, while rugby and football matches are set to take place at the Racecourse grounds.
Volleyball is to be played at the Royal College Indoor Sports Complex and Netball matches are due to be worked off at Torrington grounds.
Hockey games are due to be staged on the astroturf while the basketball matches are to be played on the 3x3 court.