Do we need a Sports Law?

Namal Rajapaksa assumes duties as the Minister for Youth and Sports

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) Management Committee Chairman Professor Arjuna de Silva’s interview with Daily FT has raised a few pertinent questions ahead of the SLC AGM that is scheduled for 20 May.

Prof. de Silva stated that if the audited accounts which the Attorney-General’s Department has to submit are not received on time, the AGM cannot be held, but hopefully the election of office bearers can be held and the AGM on another date.

How can that happen? Isn’t it in violation of the Sports Law?

The other big question is whether the former office-bearers who are also contesting the election are eligible to do so having violated the Sports Law condition for not submitting the audited accounts on time?

The Sports Law clearly states that anybody who doesn’t submit the accounts within the stipulated time frame will be ineligible to run for office.

The onus is on the office-bearers holding office to work within the rules and regulations of the Sports Law. In this instance, they have failed to do so. They are duty-bound to submit the accounts before their term of office ends, which has not been done.

There was a clear oversight on the part of the Sports Minister in allowing the former office-bearers to run by default beyond their mandated term of office. He should have given them an extension if he wanted them to continue until the next election and appointed them as an interim body on 20 February when their official term ended. The Sports Law says two years, and the two years begin on the date you are elected, which in this case was 20 February 2019.

In order to cover up the oversight, the Minister backdated the Gazette that ends the term of office of the former office-bearers, and subsequently appointed a five-member Management Committee headed by Prof. Arjuna de Silva to oversee the day-to-day running of Sri Lanka Cricket until the elections on 20 May. The committee was appointed because of some irregularities committed by the former office-bearers; so, can they run for election?

Had the Minister not backdated the Gazette, then several decisions taken by the former office-bearers, including the appointment of Tom Moody as Director of Cricket, would have become null and void because the contracts have been signed by an Executive Committee that had no legal binding as they were functioning by default after 20 February. Several contestants who are running for office have already challenged the validity of the Gazette notification which was (allegedly) backdated.

These are blatant violations of the Sports Law every which way you look at it. There is impurity reigning if there is no will to follow regulations.

It was also stated by Prof. De Silva that fitness has been made a criteria for players to be contracted and it has been included in their contracts. Legendary cricketers like Duleep Mendis, Arjuna Ranatunga and Aravinda de Silva – who is the present Chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee – can thank their lucky stars that there weren’t administrators who had no clue about sports running cricket during their time. A player in the calibre of West Indian Rahkeem Cornwall would consider himself fortunate that he was born in an island that is not Sri Lanka.