Sri Lanka to lose hosting AYG-Tug of war between NOC and Sports Ministry

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After heavy lobbying, Sri Lanka has secured further three months to put forward a comprehensive action plan to show why the Olympic Council of Asia should not strip Sri Lanka of the hosting rights of the Asian Youth Games in 2017.

At an emergency Executive Committee meeting held to coincide with the 63rd Convention of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) in Kuwait, the OCA has expressed their disappointment over the lack of commitment by the Sri Lankan government to host the million-dollar event in Hambantota.

OCA sent two of its delegates on March 12, 2014 on a fact finding mission and were shocked by the lack of progress being made despite Hambantota being warned of the consequences by the OCA earlier this year as Sri Lanka had – and still has – failed to begin any preparation for the Games.

“They have given us three months to come up with a tangible effort which should include a comprehensive road map on what is going to be achieved and how are they going to achieve. How we response to this is crucial and will definitely decide the fate of the Asian Youth Games,” an Olympic source said on the condition of anonymity.

Meanwhile another source confirmed that the report submitted by the OCA delegation which completed a fact finding mission in March, has ruled out any possibility of hosting the event in Hambantota and had recommended to shift to alternative venue.

They warned Sri Lanka to awake from their slumber and produce their intent within two weeks, with a master-plan and a complete budgetary proposal, if they wish to keep the hosting rights of the 2017 Asian Youth Games.

They also charged that Sri Lanka had not made any progress since the organizing committee met with OCA officials in last November and urged them to get proactively involved with the process urgently.

“You have a very promising global plan. The implementation of this magnificent plan started a little bit too late,” said Wei Jizhong, Life Vice-President OCA in Colombo at the end of their fact finding mission in March.

The delay was largely due to the current impasse between NOC and Ministry of Sports over the intrusive regulations in the Sports Law which the latter agreed to remove at a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland late last year.

 “On the negative side there’s no master-plan, no program at the ground level and we only saw the same proposal that we saw back in last November today,” said Haider Farman, Director, and Asian Games Department OCA following his visit to Sri Lanka on March 13, 2014.

Meanwhile a foreign website sportsbusiness.com yesterday carried what they called an exclusive story that OCA stripped Sri Lanka of Asian Youth Games and said it would be moved to Indonesia, the hosts for the 2022 events.

“The OCA has made the decision, but it will probably be officially announced in three months’ time,” a website quoted an unnamed OCA official.