Tough times for Sri Lankan football
The country’s new domestic league and national team have faced major setbacks over recent years
For the past five years, Sri Lanka have, on average, been Asia’s lowest-ranked team in the FIFA rankings, lying south of 200 for the entire period along with the likes of San Marino and Somalia. That does not mean there has been no ambition on this cricket crazy island – there has been a determination to grow the game – but things tend to get in the way. There was real excitement when the national team was drawn against South Korea in the second round of qualification for the 2022 World Cup. The first game was in October 2019 when the hosts ran out 8-0 winners to send over 23,000 fans in Hwaseong, just south of Seoul, home happy. It was also an experience that the South Asians will never forget with Son Heung-min scoring twice. “They worked hard and
were 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 face the Tottenham Hotspur star again. Son and his team-mates never played on 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 in
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 January
fields 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,” said Jaswar 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 then January 2021. It finally kicked off behind closed doors in April but there were just two rounds played before the global pandemic intervened yet again. It restarted in November and finally finished in January 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 following January. 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.