20 June 2020 12:00 am
By Harsha Amarasinghe
The Ministry of Sports & Youth Affairs is set to introduce a license for coaches in all sports in an attempt to uplift the coaching standards of all sports.
Secretary to the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs K.D. Ruwanchandra told Daily Mirror that the Ministry has identified coaching as a key attribute in developing the game in the island nation.
“I think we all agree that if you want to improve sports in a country, you have to first improve coaching. So, one of the first steps in this process is to have a system in place with information of all coaches. We’re basically looking to implement a national register of these coaches and hand them a license with which they will be able to continue their coaching,” Ruwanchandra told Daily Mirror.
With this new concept, in future no coach will be able to coach legally without the license.
“As of now, we don’t have rules and regulations to penalize anybody without a license, but we are in the process of making the appropriate policies which will make the license a significant part of quality coaching,” added Ruwanchandra.
However, one of the leading rugby coaches in Sri Lanka stated that this could have negative influence as well.
“I understand the need for quality coaching. It is very necessary, but we have not been given any information about this by Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR). It’s always good to try out new things, but there is a negative element to it as well because if you look at rugby coaching in Sri Lanka most of the young people start coaching at 19, 20 or 21, so for them to make a payment or to have so many qualifications up front, would be difficult and I think they will lose interest. It has two sides to it, but I hope the Sports Ministry makes the right choice,” the rugby coach said.
Meanwhile, one of the former national netball coaches claimed that they have not been informed about this matter at all by the Netball Federation of Sri Lanka.
“We have not been informed by the Netball Federation about this matter. Of course in the past there were talks about issuing a license for a fee of Rs. 1000, but nothing has happened so far,” the netball coach said.
Daily Mirror however, learns that certain sports bodies including the Chess Federation of Sri Lanka have officially circulated a message within its coaches over the necessity to obtain a license.