While the officials of Carrom Federation of Sri Lanka (CFSL) strive to meet their financial requirements to stage a trouble-free World Cup, the Director General of the Ministry of Sports, Ranjani Jayakody stated that attracting sponsors to fund certain sports has become a difficult task. Jayakody, made this statement at the launch of the 6th [...]

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The Sundaytimes Sri Lanka

CFSL still in the red

By Naushad Amit
Carrom World Cup 2012
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Sri Lanka will be aiming to defend their World Cup title at home. - Pic by Amila Gamage

While the officials of Carrom Federation of Sri Lanka (CFSL) strive to meet their financial requirements to stage a trouble-free World Cup, the Director General of the Ministry of Sports, Ranjani Jayakody stated that attracting sponsors to fund certain sports has become a difficult task.

Jayakody, made this statement at the launch of the 6th Carrom World Cup at its intended venue, Hotel Galadari in Colombo last Thursday. She remarked that carrom is one of the sports from the affiliated list of 54 with the Ministry of Sports which finds hard to attract sponsors.

“Today cricket has become every company’s marketing tool. There are number of private companies queued up to sponsor cricket but then again there are a number of sports that has the least attraction among sponsors. Unfortunately carrom is one of them,” she told reporters.

However, at a time when the CFSL was in need of Rupees 7 million, the Ministry of Sports was the first to take out their burden by granting them Rupees 2 million. Jayakody further stressed that there are restrictions even on the caretakers when it comes to funding.
“We know in today’s world for any sport it’s very hard to survive without sponsors. As a government, it also has limits in funding sports. Yet being a World Cup, it will be a big boost for Sri Lanka to host such an event as we get to promote the sport further in the island and at the same time we get to host over 150 visitors from all parts of the world. We too are trying our level best to help the carrom federation run a smooth event,” Jayakody further stressed.

Last week the CFSL officials revealed to the Sunday Times that they were still Rupees 5 million short of their intended budget but as at Thursday its General Secretary, Rohini Mathiasz, revealed that they managed to further boost the kitty by further Rupees 2 million.
“Knowing it’s a difficult task to draw private companies as sponsors, we appealed to individuals who are close to us and carrom. By that channel we managed to decrease the budget requirement to Rupees 3 million,” Rohini revealed.

Meanwhile, 2008 World Cup hosts, France has made a last minute u-turn without reasoning out a valid explanation while in the competition’s sixth edition to be held in Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh, England, Italy, Switzerland, Qatar, Poland, Czech Republic, Malaysia, Canada, USA, Korea, Japan, Germany and the Mauritius have confirmed their participation.
Sri Lanka’s national coach cum manager, Langley Mathiasz, who is also a top official attached to the International Carrom Federation (ICF), revealed that the host teams will be customised to the venue conditions three days prior to the competition which begins on October 31.

“We have observed that our players find it hard to play inside sealed air conditioned rooms, especially when they are coming straight, practising under humid conditions at our headquarters in Maharagama. This was something we took to notice after the test series against India which was held few months ago. Our men’s and women’s teams will be staying at Colombo Hilton for three days, practicing under cold conditions so they will not face any difficulty at the main event,” Langley revealed.

Sri Lanka men’s team will be captained by national champion Nishantha Fernando while Chamil Cooray, Mohammed Sherifdeen, Dimal Senaratne and Ajith Chandrasoma are the other players. Present national women’s skipper Joseph Roshita will lead the Sri Lanka women’s side that also include, Madushika Kanchanamala, Yasika Rahubaddha, Chalani Lakmali and Arosha Wickremasinghe.

“These players have been training consistently for the past four months and are in great shape. We can bank on both our men’s and the women’s teams that this time Sri Lanka will be able to come out as champions in both categories,” he further said.

The world cup will be held in three different formats for singles, doubles and team events for both men and women. The organisers have planned to hold the preliminary matches of all events as four groups each in every event. The tournament draw will be held on October 30 after a technical committee meeting at Galadari Hotel after all participating countries arrive in Sri Lanka.




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