Anura de Silva briefs media on various allegations

Polgahawela Football League President Anura de Silva (L) briefed media in Colombo yesterday. Dacshitha Sumathipala's team Executive Committee Member T. Suthakar is also present

• Former FSL President breaks silence on why he supports Sumathipala

By Althaf Nawaz

Polgahawela Football League Incumbent President Anura de Silva briefed the media at a press briefing held yesterday and cleared various allegations levelled at him and his team in the run-up to Football Sri Lanka (FSL) elections to be held on 29 September (Friday) in Colombo.

De Silva, who is also a former President of FSL and a livewire behind Dacshitha Sumathipala's campaign, emphasised three key factors which he says his rival camp was using as a tool immensely to disrupt their election process. He broke the silence of many as to why he opted to support Dacshitha's team and what the big issue is about the third-party involvement and to show his disgust against the injustice caused to his camp by the Election and the Appeal Committees.

“I would like to stress that I never ever had an idea to get into FSL elections. It all happened after Dr. Manil Fernando and former President Ranjith Rodrigo's decision to join Jaswar's camp and contest under Jaswar at the upcoming election, for which I was totally in disagreement. Our campaign was to make Dr. Manil our Presidential candidate after losing the previous election by 3 votes. Around 14 members extended our support to him from time to time for which Dr. Manil showed his willingness at the inception. 

“But gradually the pendulum swung the other way as both Doctor and Ranjith Rodrigo changed gears making a shocking move vouching their support to Jaswar whom they criticised heavily while filing several cases against him. How can I join them under these circumstances and what will the football-loving public think about it?

“Dr. Manil at one point was reluctant to contest for the top chair citing that he might lose if he contests against Jaswar. However, we encouraged him not to get dejected as we will back him fully, but he still refused. This made me support Sumathipala who has shown lots of promise and has indicated his clear vision of developing the game and not live by the game," said de Silva.

He went on to say that no one has to fear a FIFA suspension due to third-party involvement. “As far as AFC/FIFA are concerned, they want us to work within the stipulated framework and not to jump out from that. We have done our homework well and are aware of what we are doing. Our rival camp members are using this to threaten the leagues even though it is not true,” he further added.

He concluded by stating that the injustice caused to them by the Election and Appeal Committee, was biassed and favoured his rival camp.

“We were highly ill-treated by both Committees. They rejected some of our members but when we highlighted some of rival members who were not eligible and submitted forged documents as qualifications, both Committees just rejected our grievances. This is very surprising for us as some of the members in the Appeal Committee are Jaswar's lawyers who appeared for him against our cases. As a team, we are pretty optimistic and confident we will win with the support of our leagues, where we have met 90% of them so far, even if our four pending appeals against our members are turned down.”