Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) has been spending millions of rupees on marketing, advertisement and sponsorship in order to avoid criticism ahead of the AGM On May 31st, Cricket Age reliably learns. However, some of the Cricket Loving Media persons have raised their voice against this serious attempt, as they have spoken against This attempt to voice of media.
After the various kinds of dramas, Sri Lanka Cricket Board Election are finally scheduled for May 31st. The incumbent President Thilanga Sumathipala Led administration will try to secure another term, while stalwart Jayantha Dharmadasa and Nishantha Ranatunga have also come forward to contest the election.
However, in order to stop any kind of media criticism ahead of the AGM, SLC has been using various kinds of tricks. According to one of the Media person, ahead of AGM, SLC has been using its influence in politics in certain media groups to stop publishing against SLC.
“SLC has been trying to buy our journalists through offering air tickets and allowances for overseas coverage for the overseas tours for quite some times. But we kept refusing and did not fall to his pocket” Says a prominent journalist.
In general, Sri Lanka media has always been on the opposite end of SLC and the print and electronic media alike criticizes the various wrongdoings of the board.
However, the Scenario has changed significantly, after Sumathipala has changed his political allegiance to SLPP.
“Since some of us never fall to traps, Now SLC is using other influence to stop negative articles about the board or officials. We aren’t allowed to write anything negative about Sumathipala or Other Officials of SLC, even if we have proof and are true. “Another Prominent Journalist told Cricket Age.
Not only is the political influence, SLC trying various other tricks to avoid criticism, like spending millions on Marketing and advertisement. In last two weeks, SLC had offered full page advertisements for newspapers about their profit and in return there was articles published praise SLC and about their so called staggering amount of profits. It doesn’t take rocket science to understand SLC intentions to make the deals behind those advertisements. However, SLC failed miserably in this attempt as well.
In additions SLC said to have stopped prominent company ‘Dialog’ from sponsoring journalist for cricket tours taking control for themselves of journalists who are traveling for cricket coverage
“When It’s come to previous years “Dialog” being the official sponsor of Sri Lanka Cricket, offered sponsorship for newspaper journalists to cover the overseas tours. So we did not had any obligation to support SLC or not to criticize SLC. We just had to publish Dialog logos along with article. Now it seems SLC had stopped that too. Dialog haven’t sponsor any of the cricket tours since early 2017 South African tour and many journalist was force to accept SLC air fare and allowance for the coverage making them vulnerable for SLC pressure later on.” another revealed about the current situation to Cricket Age.
When Cricket Age inquired about this shameful incident with SLC CEO Ashley De Silva, he refused to comment anything on this.
It is also noteworthy that few days ago SLC mysteriously increased the salary and match fees of national players, even when Sri Lanka has slipped even behind Bangladesh and Afghanistan in world rankings. Thus, SLC became the first ever cricket board in the world, Who increased players salary, when the team’s performance is on all time low!
