Faizer Mustapha, who held the post from April to November 2018, will be remembered as one of the most manipulative Sports Minister in the Sri Lanka history. Even though he couldn’t even spell ‘Cricket’ properly, he used island’s most favorite game for his political platform in a big way. Gifting majority of home series matches tickets to his supporters, frequent visits to Dubai for ICC meetings without any purpose are the testimony of this.
And now, it has revealed that one of the wrong decision of Mustapha during England’s last tour of the Island had deprived Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) from earning approximately 100 million!
In October 2018, England had toured Sri Lanka for three tests, five ODIs and one off T20I, which they won 3-0, 3-1 and 1-0 respectively.
According to the sources, for the series, Mustapha had issued a directive to SLC to sale open stands tickets online, with a price of mere 500 rupees.
“That particular directive from Mr. Faizer deprived board from earning approximately Rs.100 million, as the home series against England is the most profitable, second only to India. Normally, in any part of the world, the cricket board’s don’t put open stands tickets for online sale. The cricket fans buys these tickets outside the ground on the match day” a top SLC administrator told Cricket Age.
During that time, Kamal Padmasiri was running the show at Maitland Place as Sports Ministry Secretary and Faizer Mustapha’s appointed competent authority at the SLC in the absence of an elected administration. While, Faizer was busy in boosting his political image through SLC, Kamal Padmasiri was running the board as his own private limited company.
As the Englishmen are once again touring Sri Lanka, for two tests series in March, the previous series bad experience forced SLC to opt for a hospitality partner once again.
“The board followed the procedure and advertised in local news paper for the hospitality partner. That’s how, Island Leisure came in the scene” the top administrator added.
The SLC administrator, further, accused England’s Barmy Army for double standard while coming to Sri Lanka for watching matches.
“When they goes to Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, they pays the standard prices, set by the respective cricket board. But, when they comes to Sri Lanka, they makes fuss about ticket pricing” the SLC Top administrator added further, while reacting on Cricket Age yesterday’s story about Exorbitant ticket prices for the forthcoming England tests.
