Volleyball: National Convention on August 26 and 27

The Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation has decided to conduct a volleyball National Convention on August 26 and 27 at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute. 

The reason for conducting this conference is to elaborate and make plans for the future of the sport. All national and current players, coaches, referees, organisers, sponsors, media and district associations are to take part in this two-day conference. 

This is the third time that a Volleyball National Convention is being held on the island. 

The first was in 1984 when Charitha Ratwatte was the President of the Volleyball Interim Committee. 

The second was in 2005 when Minister Dilan Perera was the President of the Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation 

The National Convention in Volleyball is to be held under the Chairmanship of Sports Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera. 

One hundred and seventy-five (175) officials representing all stakeholders are to be invited to attend this Convention. 

The plan is to get the ideas of these officials in order to plan out a strategy in order to develop the game. 

It is 100 years since volleyball has been played in Sri Lanka up to the year 2016. 

Yet, Sri Lanka has been unable to go beyond the South Asian Games. 

Last time Sri Lanka won a championship was in 1991 at the Colombo South Asian Federation Games (SAF) where the women’s team bagged the Gold Medal. 

That was 16 years ago. To date, Sri Lanka has been unable to win such a medal. 

The new volleyball committee headed by Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya is keen to know where Sri Lanka had gone wrong and set up plans to correct the mistakes in order to put the game on the right footing. 

At the all party convention plans are afoot to get their views and launch a four-year plan to resurrect the sport. 

The South Asian Games (SAG) are around the corner in 2019 to be held in Bangladesh. 

The main target is to bag the men and women Gold Medal at these games.