Priyantha Ekanayake, legendary player and former captain of the national Rugby team has been appointed the new CEO of the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union (SLRFU) to take on his duties from the 01st of January 2017.
Ekanayake, who schooled at St. Anthony’s College Katugasthota, has done a yeoman service for the nation as he captained Sri Lanka in four Rugby Asiads. In the club arena he played for CR&FC, CH&FC and then joined his hometown club Kandy SC in the year 1992. He was an immensely talented player and as a result he was given the honour of captaining the Asian Barbarians team in the year 1997. At the conclusion of his playing career, he was appointed President of the SLRFU.
Speaking to ThePapare.com Ekanayake said “I am not going to be a silver bullet or something to change the face of rugby immediately. I have been the President in the past but we still couldn’t do something that is sustainable, but my area will be completely different, I will be involving more in the front end and development. The new initiative of having the All Black’s rugby academy we’ll need to finalize soon, but mostly we will be looking at a solid structure where we can make SLRFU a product and market it.” He went on to say that a proper policy and a system should be in place for the SLRFU.
The SLRFU appointed Alistair Saverimuttu as the CEO in 2013 and he brought down Poland, Madagascar to play the 3 team tournament the ‘Serendib Cup’. Although it was a good initiative, the SLRFU could not sustain running that tournament due to financial reasons.
Meanwhile Mr. Nazeem Mohamed, the secretary of SLRFU also spoke to ThePapare.com on Ekanayake’s appointment and his responsibilities, saying that “he will look into strategic developments, provincial developments, women’s rugby, sponsorship and work closely with the Sevens and Fifteens coaching staff from the men’s and women’s teams while Rohan Gunaratne will run the operations side of things at the SLRFU and continue to work as Executive Director of the Union.”
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