Rugby has been further embroiled in the snowballing off-field scrummage with the top Premier teams in the country discussing to play in a rebel League should the sport continue to be locked in court over legal wrangling on how and who should run its affairs.
A spokesman for the eight clubs told the Sunday Observer they were running out of patience.
“Rugby is made to be played on the field and we cannot keep our players and our sponsors in cold storage.
At the same time we also don’t want to disrupt the balance. We are caught in a situation”, he said on condition that he not be named as negotiations are still underway.
After many years of distrust, the 2023 inter club League came to a spectacular end in February this year when a packed venue at Longdon Place in Colombo witnessed CR and FC beat the favourites Kandy SC that many thought was long overdue.
But the administration of club and national rugby came to a standstill over the worst form of political bondage to hit the sport in a sequence of events that could be the most intriguing to record with two factions fighting to take custody of its affairs.
The stand-off set in after the resignation of the last elected head of Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR) Rizly Illyas in 2023 as the then Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa set up an Advisory Committee for SLR after which two of his successors Roshan Ranasinghe and Harin Fernando also stepped in to play their parts in further complications.
With the resignation of Illyas came a stop-gap Committee of SLR in 2023 headed by his deputy Nalin de Silva and an election of office-bearers in 2024 was disregarded that resulted in Sports Minister Harin Fernando dismissing the remnants of SLR in May 2024.
It left the governance of rugby in the hands of Harin Fernando’s Director General of Sports Professor and retired Rear Admiral Shemal Fernando in the absence of an election of office-bearers.
On Wednesday the Court of Appeal ordered an election of office-bearers to be held that one protagonist comprising of Provincial Unions was pushing for and confident of winning the election of office-bearers to SLR.
Should the election of office-bearers be delayed it is likely the Rebel League may kick-off.
