Call for cricket-like takeover of football

By Susil Premalal

Veteran football administrator Sunil Senaweera wants a Sri Lanka Cricket-type change to the sport’s administration and lashed out that he is deeply disappointed that no football club or football leagues in the country has spoken out against irregularities within the current administration of the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL).
Former FFSL General Secretary, former FIFA referee and former FIFA/AFC match commissioner Senaweera said he was a lone voice against misdeeds at an organisation he once played a role.
Addressing a Press conference, Senaweera said that he has already brought it to the attention of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the Minister of Sports in writing on the existing issues within the football administration. 
“If there is no response I will inform FIFA (world governing body of football) and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and seek an urgent restructuring of the administration of football similar to reforms at Sri Lanka Cricket”, said Senaweera.
Responding to a question raised by the media, Senaweera said he was shocked to learn that the resigned former FFSL president Ranjith Rodrigo had attended last week’s FIFA World Congress.
Having contributed to Sri Lankan football for more than four decades in different capacities, Senaweera strongly condemned several current workings of the current football administration. 
He said among the serious lapses were the absence of an annual competition calendar, the failure to hold an executive committee meeting for over a year, the repeated replacement of foreign coaches, the lack of a permanent manager for the national team and restricting national level football matches mainly to Colombo.
He said Sri Lanka’s withdrawal from the Maldives Invitational Diamond League tournament and what he described as a lack of confidence among local football players in the administration of the sport were also serious drawbacks.
Senaweera said it was wishful thinking to consider Sri Lanka’s improvement in the FIFA world rankings from 207 to 191as a major achievement.