Rs. 28 million fraud discovered at FFSL
The Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) on Friday lodged a complaint with the Cinnamon Garden Police after they uncovered a major financial fraud running into millions of rupees within the cash-strapped sports body.
The complaint was against Federation’s accountant who has alleged to have transferred at least Rs. 28 million over a period of time to his personal accounts from the FFSL’ coffers.
“We expect it to be more,” said President Anura de Silva. “Soon after we realised some discrepancies in the accounts, we investigated it further and found out, that the accountant had been swindling money over a period of time.”
It’s not clear how the transfers have been done without the knowledge of the FFSL’s president and treasurer whose signatures are required for any financial transaction and how it did not came to light during annual audit which was done by the Auditor General’s Department.
The issue came up at Friday’s Financial Committee meeting where Prabath Gunawardena, the accountant had pleaded guilty to the fraud. He was immediately suspended pending further investigations.
“He admitted to swindling around Rs. 28 million, but I think the amount could be much bigger. We’ve launched an investigation to see how it happened and will initiate legal proceedings to recover the money,” he explained.
Police had recorded a statement from Gunawardena before releasing him.
There have been several reported incidents of playing out millions of rupees meant for football development in the past but culprits are still at large.
In spite of being funded by FIFA and AFC, the FFSL is currently in a major financial crisis and was forced to terminate the national team coaching staff last week.