Sri Lanka Badminton Association (SLBA) faces a June 20, 2014 deadline to complete the amendment of its constitution in line with the Olympic Charter and to hold the election of new office bearers for the 2014-2015 year in order to retain its international membership.
The directive was a clear indication of what is in store for all national sports associations with affiliations to the International Olympic Council (IOC) and their respective international bodies, if they failed to honour the Olympic Charter, a blueprint for sports governance.
Government interferences have become more of a norm than an exception in Sri Lanka as the sports ministry brought in several restrictive regulations to the Sports Law last year in violation of the Olympic Charter.
The move prompted the IOC, an organization with zero tolerance on interference, to intervene to sort the issue out and after discussions with stakeholders — Ministry of Sports and National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka (NOC) – made them agree to a revision of the Sports Law.
A letter addressed to SLBA president Suraj Dandeniya expressed its concern over the direct and indirect governmental interferences in the affairs of the SLBA, and it clearly believes that a suspension is one of the only ways to protect the international sports movement from unacceptable control of national sports organizations.
“The BWF places a deadline on this of Friday 20 June 2014 for the amendments to be adopted by the SLBA membership and fresh elections are conducted- which will meet the six month deadline communicated by the IOC to resolve this matter,” the letter signed by Thomas Lund, Secretary General, BWF, states.
The BWF was referring to the restrictive amendments introduced by the ministry of sports during the last year, including that of placing a two-year term on administrators as opposed to previous one-year term.
The BWF stressed that SLBA should abide by its own constitution and not those restrictive legislations by the government and should hold the election of office bearers as specified in the constitution.
“BWF is still concerned that the SLBA acts in conflict with its own constitution.
“In the BWF letter of 19 March, it was stated that the BWF found it unacceptable that SLBA does not hold elections in 2014, which would be in clear violation of the SLBA Constitution. Accepting a government directive on such a fundamental governance area (such as the timing of SLBA elections) would be a clear sign of government interference and BWF would have to consider suspending the SLBA until such time that a proper governance structure was implemented,” it further states.
SLBA had scheduled its Annual General Meeting (AGM) for March 30, 2014, in time to meet the requirement under its constitution but postponed it to an unspecified date and called for a Special General Meeting (SGM) on April 10, 2014. However at the SGM its membership has voted to hold the AGM without the election of office bearers clearly contravening the constitution.
“BWF however has to insist that the changes are made before the mentioned deadline irrespective of changes having been made to the Sports Law, as the current situation is not sustainable and BWF has no other choice (according to BWF Constitution and the Olympic Charter) than to consider other causes of action should the SLBA and/or the Government not live up to the expectations,” the letter further added.
The BWF says the SLBA in its letters to the Badminton World Federation (BWF) dated February 7, 2014 and April 16, 2014 has agreed to review its constitution to ensure that it is not in conflict with the BWF Statues and the Olympic Charter.
