Colombo, Dec 9 (PTI) Sri Lankan president Ranil Wickremesinghe said he is mulling a regulation with which sports minister’s power to appoint interim committees would be taken off.
Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) was suspended by the ICC for government interference last month and the global body has also shifted the U-19 World Cup to South Africa.
It was after Sri Lanka’s sports minister Roshan Ranasinghe decided to sack the governing body and appoint an interim committee headed by World Cup-winning former captain Arjuna Ranatunga.
The SLC management had been fired by the sports minister based on irregularities in a government audit report concerning the board’s expenditure on participation at the T20 World Cup in Australia last year.
Wickremesinghe sacked Ranasinghe for his action on November 27.
Addressing the 150th anniversary of the Colombo Colts Cricket Club, a leading domestic club, Wickremesinghe said he planned to rid the cricket administration completely of politics.
The existing 1973 sports law permits the minister to sack governing bodies while the minister must personally endorse all Sri Lankan national representation team selections.
“With the current commercialization of cricket it is important to keep the game away from politics,” he said.
He said the current sports minister Harin Fernando was communicating with the ICC in order to lift the ban imposed by the world body.
The sports minister is to report to the court next week his position on the interim committee appointed by his predecessor. PTI COR ATK BS BS
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