The Annual General Meeting of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Association (SLRFU) was held at the Galle Face Hotel on March 9th. Asanga Seneviratne along with his executive board that held office last year was re-elected into office uncontested.
Seven Council members were also elected accordingly, while life member of the SLRFU Y.C. Chang was elected Protem Chairman before the election of the office bearers.
Office Bearers:
President – Mr. Asanga Seneviratne
Vice President – Mr. Lasitha Gunaratne
Hony. Secretary – Mr. Rizly Illyas
Hony. Treasurer – Mr. Kiran Atapattu
Council Members:
Maj. Gen.l Daya Ratnayake
Mr. Fazal Mohamed
Mr. Roshan Deen
Mr. Chula Dharmadasa
Rear Admiral Jayantha Perera
Mr. Prasantha Wimalasena
Brigadier Sunil Ranasinghe (Rtd.)
The President of the SLRFU, Asanga Seneviratne speaking to ThePapare went on to make the following statement on the future plans and developments in Sri Lankan Rugby.
‘The start of the A5Nations will be the first major tournament in the SLRFU calendar. I am very happy to note that the top players are playing and Sri Lanka will look to field their best team, as we are confident we can win it this time.
Apart from that, the SLRFU has prepared the rugby calendar well in advance, and has planned events for a whole year, there will be six 7s tournaments along with four 7s tournaments in the Asian circuit. The SLRFU hope to stick to the above mentioned schedule which is very important.
This time too, Dialog has come up with a record sponsorship which is helping rugby immensely. This sponsorship is utilized to develop and propel the game, and also help its climb to being the most popular spectator sport in Sri Lanka.
Havelock SC has obtained flood lights to host matches in the evening, and I believe Navy too has the facility. We hope to promote games being played later in the evening to attract more spectators rather than the usual 4.30 kick off.
Since the school and club season will are not scheduled parallel, this would increase the number of spectators in both tournaments since support will not be divided.
The SLRFU will continue its effort in training more referees, and also plan to set up a system where players will also be contracted with the SLRFU and their respective Clubs, which would also mean that player transfers will be monitored by the SLRFU as well.’
