Home stadium...
Colombo Racecourse
Credit: Colombofc.com
WORLD SERVICEwere technically good,” said Son after
the game.
They were also delighted to face
him. “To play against Son Heung-min,
who is one of the best attackers in the
Premier League, was amazing,” Sri Lanka
defender Yogendran Duckson Puslas
said after the game. “His movement
is like nothing I have seen before and
he was so fast. It will be great to play
against him in Colombo, the fans will be
waiting and it will be a great atmosphere
and be good for football in our country.”
Sadly, Puslas passed away in February
at the age of 31 having never got to facetheTottenham Hotspur staragain. Son
andhis team-mates neverplayedon
the island either. Due to COVID, the
game was postponed, and postponed
again, until it was eventually decided to
play all the remaining group matches in
South Korea. The Sri Lanka federation
had been ready to use the visit of the
Koreans to play in what would have
been a full Colombo Racecourse to
promote the new developments
taking place in local football.
The top tier of football in the
country since 2009 had been the Sri
Lanka Champions League, an amateur
competition that came to an end in 2018.
It was due to be replaced in April 2020
by the new Sri Lanka Super League,
the first semi-professional and
sustainable league in the country.
It was to feature ten teams, based
on the Asian Football Confederation’s
licensing rules, which stipulate that
basic standards must be met infields such as medical care, youth
development, marketing and elsewhere.
There also have to be coaches for youth
teams as well as general managers
appointed. It was all helped by
$500,000 from FIFA.
“Professional League is not just
another competition; it is a totally new
football industry with a professional
employment contract for over 300
players, coaches and other officials.
It also provides new business
opportunities to many local
entrepreneurs in this new football
business,” saidJaswar Umar, the
federation’s
general
secretary
and the man
behind the
new league.
“This was a
missing part
in Sri Lankan
football
structure for nearly 80 years.”
With COVID spreading internationally
and the world entering lockdown, April
2020 was obviously a non-starter. It
was pushed back to November and
thenJanuary 2021. It finally kicked
off behind closed doors in April butOutstanding...Son
Heung-min takes on
the Sri Lanka defence
in Hwaseong in 2019there were just two rounds played
before the global pandemic intervened
yet again. It restarted in November and
finally finished inJanuary 2022 with
the teams facing each other just once
in order to get it finished after nine
games in the space of nine months.
Blue Star SC from the western part of
the country, lost the opening game but
recovered to win seven of the next eight
to take the inaugural title. The Kalutara
club from the southwest of the island
went into the qualification round of the
AFC Cup, Asia’s second-tier tournament
designed for developing nations, where
they were thrashed 5-0 by Indian
giants ATK Mohun Bagan.
It is not just the pandemic that
has stopped the league getting going.
Problems in the country mean that
there is less money around from
sponsors and broadcasters, and the
general public have other things to
think about. Inflation is rampant,
with food prices rising almost 25
per cent from when the Super League
belatedly started in April 2021 to when
it finished the followingJanuary. The
cost of medicines and fuel have
increased. Power blackouts are a daily
occurrence and often long – ten hours
on March 30,
for example.
Times are tough
then, and not just
in football. If the
Super League can
get past these
early struggles
then there is no
reason why Sri
Lanka can’t start
climbing those
world rankings.It is not just the pandemic that has stopped the
league getting going...Inflation is rampant, with
food prices rising almost 25 per cent from when
the Super League belatedly started in April 2021
to when it finished the following JanuaryTragedy...former
Sri Lanka defender
Yogendran
Duckson Puslas