Ekanayake to be appointed SLRFU CEO

By Shamseer Jaleel

Priyantha Ekanayake, a former President of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) and one-time Sri Lanka skipper, will be appointed the SLRFU’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) from 1 December.

Ekanayake played rugby or St. Anthony’s Katugastota, CH&FC, CR&FC and Kandy. He is probably one of the best ruggerites produced by his school, emerging as the first Antonian to lead a Sri Lankan rugby side. He is also the only ruggerite to captain the country at four Rugby Asiads.

Ekanayake also played cricket, basketball and athletics. However, although he was a good cricketer he opted to play rugby and continued with the game even after leaving school.  He started his rugby career under the guidance of the famous Antonian coach, the late Kalu Perera, who coached him until he left school. While still in school he played for Kandy under Irwin Howie in 1985. From then there was no stopping Ekanayake as he went on to represent the Sri Lanka Under-24 team and toured Taipei in 1985.

In club rugby he represented CH&FC and later CR&FC before crossing over to Kandy in 1992. In 1997 he led the Asian Barbarians invitational team. The Barbarians comprised players from Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.

Ekanayake later became President of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union, where he had Dilroy Fernando as his Secretary and rendered yeoman service toward the progress and development of rugby within Sri Lanka. He also briefly coached Kandy.

SLRFU Secretary Nazeem Mohamed told Daily FT that the organisation was bringing aboard a legend as its CEO.

“We have big plans for the future of Sri Lankan rugby, both the men’s and women’s game. We want to win a minimum of a silver at the next Asian Games in 2018, making rugby the second sport to win a medal at this level for Sri Lanka after netball. Our Sevens rugby is peaking at the correct time and we want to be part of the World Sevens Series. If USA and Kenya can why can’t we? Our history of rugby is over 100 years while the majority of other countries started very recently. Sevens rugby suits us better than Fifteens. SLRFU President Asanga Seneviratne has a vision is to do all these things and make Sri Lanka second in Asia behind Japan in the Fifteens,” Mohamed said.

“For all these reasons we need one dynamic figure to head things and that is none other than Priyantha Ekanayake, who will be taking over as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the SLRFU from December 2016. He will look into strategic developments, provincial developments, women’s rugby, sponsorship and work closely with the Sevens and Fifteens coaching staff from the men’s and women’s teams while Rohan Gunaratne will run the operations side of things at the SLRFU and continue to work as Executive Director of the Union. 

“With a calibre of person like Priyantha coming in, we want to reduce the gap between schools and club rugby and take rugby to the next level. Priyantha is the most respected past captain who has led his school, club and country. He is also a top administrator who has proven himself at the SLRFU as a former President. We are very confident that we will achieve our goal through his appointment. This CEO post was initially opened out in 2013 when Alastair Saverimuttu was appointed but later on he never returned from England where he had settled,” he said.