Clubs protest as Super 8’s gets postponed to November

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DCL 16 Super 8

In another strange and disorganized turn of events the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) decided to postpone the Dialog Champions League 2016 Super 8 stage until November after vociferous protests from clubs and considering the upcoming National team duties.

In the meeting that was held today (15th Sep) evening, with the club officials, it was decided by the competitions department that the remaining Super 8 game weeks, from week 2, will be played from November 19th onwards.

This decision comes a mere hours after a media statement was released confirming the Super 8 week 2 matches this weekend (17th & 18th Sep), once again highlighting growing concerns of disorganization and communication in the FFSL.  

The FFSL is now being bombarded with criticism from all corners, especially from the football clubs participating in the tournament due to the inefficient organizing and communication of matches, of the governing body.

This decision was also taken due to the fact that many players in the national team would have to be overworked, which in turn could lead to exhaustion and injuries, and would result in negative performances in the upcoming tours of Cambodia and Thailand, and possibly the AFC Solidarity Cup in Malaysia.

“There were strong but valid arguments raised by the clubs and considering National duty takes prominence we’ve decided to postpone the Super 8’s until the end of the AFC Solidarity Cup,” CEO of the FFSL Jaswar Umar said exclusively to ThePapare.com.

“Clubs argued that after the National practices during the week their players in the national squad doesn’t have time to practice and prepare for the Super 8 matches and also over working would result in injuries,” he went on to say.

Initially, the fixtures for game week 2 was meant to be played on the 11th of September, however, it was postponed to the 13th and 14th due to the Eid-Al-Adha Hajj festival.

Due to the discontent of the management of the national team, since the matches were to be played on weekdays, clashing with national team practices, the FFSL postponed it yet again to the 17th and 18th of September.

The series of unfortunate events have made many stakeholders question as to why the competitions committee did not have prior communication with the management of the national team with regard to the scheduling of the fixtures.

In the midst of all this, many of the football clubs have also voiced their outrage to the Federation due to the confusing nature of the federation’s way of communicating their messages and scheduling regarding the postponement of the matches.

If the governing body talks of overhauling the system in which it operates in to raise the standard of the sport in the country, and achieve the goal of being the most popular sport in the country by the year 2020, it certainly has to look into the management and communication areas very cautiously.

With all this, one could only hope that the remainder of the tournament would run smoothly, resulting in amazing matches, and also these inefficiencies would be taken care of in the future.