FSL President Jaswar Umar (right) and two Vice Presidents

Dr. Manil Fernando (left) and Ranjith Rodrigo

• Majority of leagues calls on president to dissolve current committee

By Althaf Nawaz

The majority of the 66 leagues affiliated to Football Sri Lanka (FSL) have called on President Jaswar Umar to dissolve the incumbent committee and hold a fresh election to overcome the current internal crisis that has reached its peak and is hampering the restart of the world’s most popular game in Sri Lanka.

They called on Umar to urgently decide to dissolve the existing committee and hold new elections, otherwise the matter would end in a deadlock.

All this happened after a senior member of the incumbent Executive Committee leaked decisions of the committee to various media organizations, violating the protocols of the FSL guidelines. The said member also blamed the supreme chairman and made numerous allegations against the current regime – which he serves -, leading to various factions throwing mud to disrupt the progress of the FSL management.

The incumbent regime came to power after the FSL was suspended for a long time by FIFA due to interference from third parties, including the then Sports Minister, who was one of the accused. However, to save football, all the factions agreed on a common platform. Former presidential candidate Dr. Manil Fernando and Ranjith Rodrigo from Jaswar’s opposing camp also agreed to support Jaswar as their presidential candidate against newcomer Dakshitha Sumathipala, who secured 20 votes against the 45 that Jaswar’s camp received last September with the support of a majority of the leagues.

Since then, FSL has struggled to restructure its management, which was in a state of complete disarray, and the team has had to pass several audits by the world football governing body to obtain financial support to restart football in Sri Lanka.

A member of a southern league told Daily FT: “We (all leagues) have come together unanimously to put aside our differences and revive football in the country which was heading towards a natural death. But it is very unfortunate that the current regime is breaking up into different factions, which is putting football in trouble. Therefore, the only way to overcome this situation is to dissolve the incumbent committee and hold fresh elections to elect a new set of officials.”

“Some of the officials of the current regime assume that these league members are idiots and incapable of doing their jobs. We want to tell these people that they are very wrong and we will show our power to protect football while supporting the people who are service-minded to promote football.”