Sri Lanka on the brink of being suspended by the IOC
As the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka (NOCSL) gears up for its Annual General Meeting on December 30, 2024, the nation stands on the brink of global embarrassment and sporting isolation all due to one individual’s audacious defiance.
Maxwell De Silva, the current Secretary General of the NOCSL, has brazenly ignored the suspension imposed on him by the Ethics Committee, an order fully backed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA). These international bodies have already fired their first warning shot by withholding all funding to the NOCSL in a move that should terrify any responsible sports administrator. Yet De Silva clings to his seat, flagrantly violating both national sports law and the NOCSL’s own constitution.
Meanwhile, a shameless cohort of NOCSL Executive Committee members continues to prop him up, turning a blind eye to the dire consequences looming over Sri Lanka’s sports community. The IOC’s wrath is not to be taken lightly: with 32 sports associations and over a thousand athletes facing potential bans from international competition, Sri Lanka is on the edge of being completely shut out from the global sporting arena. The notion that the nation might miss out on the upcoming Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games where cricket will be introduced, potentially handing Sri Lanka its best shot at an Olympic medal in nearly three decades is utterly alarming.
As forewarned and predicted by The Morning Telegraph earlier, this crisis at the NOCSL is escalating at breakneck speed. Time is running out for De Silva to comply with his suspension; in a desperate scramble to evade accountability, he and his allies are reportedly plotting to remove the Ethics Committee altogether and force premature elections. Their shameless behavior is designed solely to protect De Silva and preserve the entitlements and power they have grown accustomed to. With De Silva’s guilt becoming increasingly apparent, these plotters will stop at nothing even if it means dragging the entire country’s sports reputation through the mud.
To make matters worse, the Ministry of Sports appears shockingly indifferent to this unfolding fiasco. Minister of Sports Sunil Kumara Gamage seems to be in the dark, perhaps deliberately misled by Director General of Sports Development, Dr. Shemal Fernando, someone with a history of shielding De Silva. These individuals once conducted an inquiry that found De Silva culpable of various fraudulent activities, yet the damning report was conveniently buried for seven months. It only resurfaced after Minister Harin Fernando was ousted from parliament while Fernando, Dr. Shemal Fernando, and their legal advisor Chandimal Mendis cozied up to De Silva, benefiting from trips abroad to events like the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
De Silva’s checkered past is well-known: he was booted out of a prominent shipping company for alleged fraud (while also leading its trade union), then expelled from the Colombo Swimming Club, before slithering into the Sri Lanka Tennis Association (SLTA) Executive Committee despite not even being a tennis player, a fact confirmed by the SLTA under the Right to Information Act. Now, he has assembled a ring of corrupt officials committed to safeguarding him at any cost even if it means jeopardizing Sri Lanka’s standing with the IOC. Their refusal to conduct a Forensic Financial Audit minuted at the 2021 AGM but never executed further reveals their brazen disregard for transparency and accountability.
To underscore the gravity of the situation, it’s worth noting that the IOC and OCA have not hesitated to clamp down on officials from more influential nations. Kuwaiti nationals Sheikh Talal Fahad Ahmed Al Sabah, Souhail Khoury, and General Mowaffak Jomaa were all suspended in the past, and the IOC went on to win the subsequent appeals at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland. In other words, if the IOC is willing to suspend high-profile figures from Kuwait, it will certainly not hesitate to hammer Sri Lanka with similar sanctions.
If the Minister of Sports fails to act immediately, Sri Lanka will almost certainly face suspension by the IOC, depriving countless athletes of the chance to compete on the international stage. Should that happen, this monumental failure will forever be stamped against the name of Minister Sunil Kumara Gamage, tarnishing not just his record but also the nation’s already fragile reputation in world sports.
This is the grim reality: A tiny nation’s entire sporting future is on the cusp of catastrophe all because of one man’s unbridled arrogance and the enablers who refuse to uphold the very laws and regulations they swore to protect. If Sri Lanka’s leaders do not intervene right now, the country’s descent into international sporting oblivion will be swift and humiliating.
