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FSL President Jaswar Umar
By Althaf Nawaz
The second edition of the prestigious Super League Soccer tournament conducted by Football Sri Lanka (FSL) is scheduled to kick off from mid-October with the participation of 10 teams, and is likely to be staged at Race Course Stadium.
After a barren two-year calendar owing to various reasons – mainly the suspension imposed by FIFA – the new FSL regime is finally gearing up to launch their event Calendar with this iconic tournament, which will attract some of the best players in the game – both local and few overseas players.
The 10 teams – defending champions Blue Star, runner-up Sea Hawks, Colombo FC (3rd), New Young, Ratnam, Renown, Red Star, Defenders, Up County Lions and Blue Eagle - are likely to be drafted into this year’s tournament, which will be finalised within the next few weeks.
The 18 weeks of intensive competition will see 90 matches played in one centralised location, where 250 players, 120 officials and 60 referees will be seen in action.
Speaking to Daily FT the FSL President Jaswar Umar was delighted to restart football in the country which faced many obstacles and barriers before reaching this stage. “My team of officials and I are working tirelessly to put things in order and to resume the game as soon as possible. We faced many obstacles, mainly financial, after the suspension, which halted the money flow. Nevertheless, we are striving hard with the available resources to kick start the game until we gradually get into the comfort zone with the World and Asian governing bodies support.”
“We know the aspirations of the soccer loving fraternity in the country are eager to watch games and competitions resumed. We assure all of them that slowly but steadily they will see the game resume and all competitions at various levels will be started gradually.”
When inquired about the National team’s preparation for the upcoming double header against Cambodia early next month, he stated: “Well, the local players were under training with our local coach Amanulla for quite some time. We managed to get Abdulla AlMutairi, a very experienced person in the game at present, with the support of Tim Cahill of Aspire in Qatar, who was quite magnanimous to offer him. We are working hard to get a very positive output in these two outings with the inclusion of our overseas players who are due to arrive in the country in a few days,” concluded Jaswar.
