Sri Lanka Carrom short of cash to stage World Cup
Sri Lanka are the defending champions
Exactly 23 days after staging the extravaganza ICC Twenty20 World Championship, Sri Lanka will host the 6th World Carrom Championship in Colombo but under gloomy conditions.
Sri Lanka players have been practicing for the past four months for the forthcoming World Cup - Pics by Amila Gamage
The Carrom Federation of Sri Lanka (CFSL) officials have less than ten days to go before hosting 17 countries at the ultimate competition in any sport, but are far behind from their expected budget requirement.
According to Rohini Mathiasz, the general secretary of CFSL, the budgeted amount for hosting the Carrom World Cup is Rupees 7 million. But as at now they have only managed to secure Rupees 2 million, a generous sum granted by the Ministry of Sports.
“The 5th World Carrom Championship was won by our men players in 2008 in Cannes, France, while our women ended up as runners up. The year 2008 also coincided with the 50th Anniversary of the CFSL. But we never had a sponsor nor do we have one now, which is a very disappointing and disturbing factor, especially when we are the defending World Champions and when we are endeavouring to win the title once again for Sri Lanka,” she stated.
The event will be held from October 31 to November 4 at the Galadari Hotel in Colombo. However a heavy portion of the burden have been taken off from the CFSL by Galadari Hotel, the hospitality partner of the event, who had come forward to sponsor the venues in addition to offering over 120 participants from 18 countries with cost effective packages. This is a much looked forward for relief anticipated by the CFSL officials who are still far behind their requirements. But Rohini is of the view that defending their World title at home may change all their misfortunes though it failed to gather much attention in 2008.
“We have a good set of players who can possibly do wonders at the forthcoming world cup. But the CFSL is heavily troubled with expenditures that we never used to cover such as paying a huge monthly rental to our headquarters in Maharagama. This in a way has hampered the well-being of the national players who are practicing hard for the event,” she added.
Sri Lanka carrom players with the Mathiaszs.
Without a benefactor the CFSL has been spending approximately Rupees 50,000 per month to maintain its national pools in addition of being compelled to pay an equal sum as rent, after being removed from its former premises at Reid Avenue where they were housed for over 16 years. Despite of facing an improbability of finding the required amount, the CFSL has done all the ground work to host the world cup and are determined to make it a success.
Despite the organisers’ assessments, at competition Sri Lanka will be up for tough challenges against 17 other teams that have confirmed participation. Among the countries to take part in the world cup to be held in Sri Lanka are India, Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh, England, Italy, Switzerland, Qatar, Poland, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Canada, USA, Korea, Japan, Germany and the Mauritius.
To represent Sri Lanka, the CFSL has selected ten players, five each from men’s and women’s squads. The men’s squad will be captained by national champion Nishantha Fernando while Chamil Cooray, Mohammed Sherriffdeen, 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 Rahubadda, Chalani Lakmali and Arosha Wickremasinghe.
From the team members who took part in the 2008 world cup, Fernando and Cooray are the only players from the men’s side to retain their places while in the women’s team the only survivor is Rahubadda, a former national champion who made a successful comeback after a lapse of two years. Both teams are managed and coached by Langley Mathiasz who is hopeful that Sri Lanka has all the possibilities of staging a wonder.
“The players have been training consistently for the past four months and are in great shape. We can be optimistic of our men’s team and the women too are not second to them,” he 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; after all participating countries arrive in Sri Lanka.
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