Chandika Hathurusingha, the high profile Coach, has turned out a white elephant for Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC). While the team hit a new low under his wings, Hathurusingha’s dictatorship made it hard for local talents to work with the national setup. Above all, abiding by former SLC President Thilanga Sumathipala’s wrongdoings in drafting Hathurusingha’s contract, the board is bound to pay an ‘unimaginable’ monthly salary to him, making him the cricket world’s third highest paid coach after England’s Trevor Bayliss and India’s Ravi Shastri.
On January 16, Cricket Age had exposed how Hathurasingha charged a whopping 60,000 USD from the SLC for just an assessment report of the national team. More shockingly, as per his contract, Hathurusingha is entitled to get 1,20,000 USD in a year for submitting two reports!
However, his contract details proves that Hathurasingha forced to dance Sumathipala on his tune as in order to hide his administration’s wrongdoings and incompetence the former president agreed each and every unethical term and condition of the coach.
Cricket Age has the access of his contract and Hathurusingha is, accordingly, entitled to a basic salary of US$ 20,000 a month (Rs 3.6mn), of which he has to pay 16 percent as PAYE tax; US$ 10,000 (Rs. 1.8mn) as living allowance; US$ 120,000 (Rs 21.6mn) as strategic planning and consultancy fees, to be paid back in advance biannually; and up to US$ 20,000 (Rs 3.6mn) reimbursement of his travelling expenses per year. This works out to a monthly salary of US$ 41,666 (Rs 7.5mn).
‘I can’t reveals the details of his contracts but we are making him payments under the contractual obligations we have,” forcefully said cricket CEO Ashely de Silva after Cricket Age exposed how SLC made a bulk payment of USD 60,000 to Hathurusingha.
This is in addition to other perks like per diems, international health insurance, car, fuels and incentives a Senior Manager of SLC is entitled too.
It proves Hathurusingha negotiated with Sumathipala in his own terms, that were completely unprofessional! How can Hathurusingha charge SLC a whopping 1,20,000 USD annually for just submitting two assessment reports? Isn’t submitting assessment reports is a integral part of the coaching job? So, how can Hathurusingha charge it separately? And, on which ground, Sumathipala accepted these ridiculous terms and conditions?
More shockingly, with his incompetence in drafting Hathurusingha’s contract, Sumathipala has put SLC in further mess. Cricket Age reliably learns that in past few weeks, Sri Lanka national selectors have complained about the coach dictatorship! In addition, now SLC also wants to get rid of Hathurusingha as soon as possible. Reasons are obvious! During his one year time as head coach, Sri Lanka team couldn’t win a single shorter formats series. In that period, except for allrounder Thisara Perera, no Sri Lanka batsmen could manage a single ODI hundred. In current ODI Rankings, Thisara Perera is Sri Lanka’s highest ranked batsman, placed at 43. The poor results shows Hathurusingha has proved his worth only in drawing millions from the SLC!
Even then, SLC can’t afford to remove Hathurasingha! Reason, as per his contract, if SLC removes him before his three year contract expires, then the board will have to pay him one year salary! It’s approximately 4,80,000 USD!
it’s the ‘fixing’ at highest level by Sumathipala. And not only Hathurusingha, Sumathipala brought all high profile coaches during his tenure by following the same pattern. Asanka Gurusinha, another white elephant for SLC, draws 1.5 million. Thilan Samaraweera, before his removal, was getting 1 million. Sri Lanka’s last bowling coach Rumesh Rathnayake and even even team analyst gets monthly salary of more than one million! Still, Sri Lanka team have slipped behind Bangladesh and Afghanistan!
The newly appointed Sports Minister Harin Fernando must investigate all these sins of Sumathipala. On which ground, he agreed to pay that much amount to these coaches? Is there someone, who is getting a big commission from these deals? And, after giving that much salaries, have SLC CEO Ashley De Silva and COO Jerome Jayarathne ever bothered to evaluate performance of these coaches?
