Few days prior to Proposed Election Of Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC), Thilanga Sumathipala led administration tried to oblige Everyone in order to avoid negativity around them and create a “All Happy” Atmosphere. Accordingly, Sumathipala and Co Sponsored Four Sports Journalists to go the West Indies to cover three test match series in order to avoid media criticism, Cricket Age reliably learns.
Thilanga Sumathipala led administration had to leave SLC in a embarrassing way, after The Court of Appeal Gave a stay order on AGM, was scheduled to be held on May 31st. Before this, Sumathipala and Co obliged four journalists with the sponsorship for Sri Lanka’s tour of West Indies.
Cricket Age has the access of ExCo minute, that says SLC approved return air tickets and Expenses allowances to them.
“The Executive Committee approved to allocate the return air tickets (approximately Rs. 350,000/- each) plus 200,000/- per person as an expenses Allowance” The ExCo Minute Says.
Another interesting thing is that amongs four journalists, one is belongs to Lakbima Which is a news paper of SLC then President Thilanga Sumathipala’s family.
Another interesting thing in this Saga is all those four journalists still haven’t gone to West Indies, even though the first test match will most probably be finished Today itself.
When Cricket Age inquired about the ‘So called’ Sponsorship, Many surprising facts got Exposed.
Like any other cricket playing nation, Sri Lanka journalists too covers Their team’s overseas tours. However, for this, they gets the sponsorship from Companies like Dialog, Coca Cola and Ceylon Tea. Before, Sumathipala Led administration, No other Administration ever obliged, offered or approved Tour sponsorship for Journalists.
“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.” One Sri Lankan journalist revealed about the current situation.
The interesting thing is that no other cricket board in the world offers Tour Sponsorship to journalists. not even the richest cricket board BCCI offers Tour Sponsorship.
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!
