In a bid to nurture the rugby refereeing standard in the country and to encourage new blood onto the system, the Interim Committee of the Sri Lanka Rugby Referees Society had decided to increase the match fees payable to each rugby referee with effect from April 2015.
According to the Interim Committee, a ‘A’ panel referee will now be paid a sum of Rs. 10,000/= which is a Rs. 3,500/= increment compared to the earlier amount which was Rs.6,500/=. The match fee of the ‘B’ panel referees also will see a facelift seeing an increase from 2,500/= to Rs. 6,000/=.
Sri Lanka’s refereeing panel currently consists of four elite ‘A’ panel referees; Dinka Peiris, Irshad Cader, Priyantha Gunaratna & Aruna Rankothge with the exclusion of D. Nimal and Pradeep Fernando. Both D. Nimal & Fernando had failed meet the fitness standards which has resulted their demotion.
The rugby referees are currently undergoing transition under the guidance of Garratt Williamson who is currently in the country in attempt to bring the Sri Lankan refereeing standard on par with the international level. According to Williamson, the initial step for referee development will be fitness. Since Sri Lanka follows the beep test to test fitness, the referees will strictly need to adhere to the respective standard if they wish to remain in the elite panel.
With the referee development system in place, the interim committee will not be allowing Fernando & D. Nimal to referee the top division games till they reach the set fitness level.
