I came here not to protect any person as Sports Minister but as a former Sportsman, I like to face any challenge and handling sports is a big challenge during this hard period said Sports, Youth Affairs, Tourism and Lands Minister Harin Fernando at his first official sport event of the “A decade of fair play joint discussion organized by the Sri Lanka Anti Doping Agency (SLADA) yesterday at the Sports Ministry Auditorium.
I never fear any challengers and when I was the sports Minister the previous time for nine months I did lot of work to develop sports . This time once again I took over this same post but I never expected it was but due to some difficult issues the Government offered me the Sports and Youth Affairs Ministry. when I work as Tourism and Lands Minister I worked freely but now with the Sports Ministry I have to do lot more work.
Today 66 sports Bodies attached to Sports Ministry and they are a headache and due to lot of issues of this sports bodies very difficult to focus on athletes issues. I have plan to appoint a Sports Ombudsman at the Sports Ministry and any athlete can bring their problems to him.
The new Sports Minister also pointed out that anti doping programmes are very vital for clean sports. I think sport is not only cricket but also we have to look after 66 Sports bodies and this time I was appointed to mainly to solve the cricket issue . modern technology is related to sports but I am very disappointed those days when I was at the Vincent Dias Stadium at Badulla there were a lot of young athletes engaged in sports but today there are several veteran people doing competitive sports.
I know next Olympics are in France next June but so far we haven’t had an Olympic qualifying athlete and we have to plan now itself said Sports Minister. Today athletes most of the time using mobile phones and not focussing properly.
Today I have important four Ministries: Tourism , Lands , Sports and Youth Affairs and these four will be coordinated to promote sports . Promoting tourism through sports and we have already planned an International run with the participation of 15, 000 athletes from various countries and anti doping will also be introduced for this run to give a message to all. The knowledge of anti doping is very important and today we can see several big issues for the athletes regarding anti doping. I think Prof Arjuna de Silva and his team have done a tremendous job and need their continuous support to go forward, said Sports Minister.
I request all to get together to uplift sports and I have no politics and personal agendas and will work hard to develop sports he said.
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