“The Morning Telegraph has uncovered the ultimate smoking gun, the long-buried minutes of Sri Lanka Rugby’s so-called Emergency Council Meeting held 11 years ago. These documents unmask the Dirty Dozen: then SLR President Asanga Seneviratne, Secretary Nalin De Silva, Hassan Sinhawansa, Rajiv Perera, Anver Jayah, and seven Tri Forces officials. In a scheme worthy of Watergate, they conspired to smuggle three Fijians into the national rugby side, a move that disgraced the country and saddled it with a crippling £50,000 fine. The revelation is damning and it demands accountability from the very top.”
Sri Lanka Rugby is now staring at its very own Watergate moment. The Morning Telegraph, in possession of the secret meeting minutes of a clandestine gathering held at former SLR President Asanga Seneviratne’s private business office at 14 Reid Avenue Colombo 7, can now reveal the full list of those who orchestrated one of the darkest and most shameful chapters in the sport’s history, the illegal drafting of three Fijian nationals into the Sri Lankan team at the 2014 Rugby Asiad.
Those players, Emori Waqavulagi, Joseph Dunn, and Apisai Naqaliva were smuggled into the national 15-a-side side under the captaincy of Namal Rajapaksa, now an MP. The scandal eventually saw World Rugby slap Sri Lanka with a £50,000 fine, money clawed back in instalments from development funds meant for the players and grassroots rugby.
But the true crime is that for over 11 years, not a single person has been held accountable.
The Secret Meeting
The minutes reveal that this was no accident, no oversight. It was deliberately plotted. The secret “Emergency Council Meeting” was held not at the SLR office, but at Asanga Seneviratne’s business premises, a deliberate choice to avoid scrutiny.
Present at the table were 12 men, a toxic blend of ex-Tri Forces officers and civilian powerbrokers:
- Asanga Seneviratne, then President of SLR
- Group Captain (Rtd) Nalin De Silva, then SLR Secretary (now unbelievably part of today’s rugby administration under Minister Sunil Kumara Gamage)
- Hassan Sinhawansa, Nawalapitiya Lions official and right-hand man to then Sports Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage (and also currently protected under Minister Gamage)
- Rajiv Perera, Havelocks SC
- Anver Jayah, (the late) close ally of Namal Rajapaksa, representing Hambantota Sharks
And alongside them, seven Tri Forces officers recruited to rubber-stamp the plan:
- Col (Rtd) Dhammika Gunasekara (North Central Province RFU)
- Lt. A.W.R.C Luxman (Eastern Province)
- Ex SL NAVY P.N.D. Kaluarachchi (Ruhunu Province)
- Col. Manjula Wijesinghe (Northern Province)
- Gen. B.A. Perera (Sri Lanka Army representative)
- Air Commodore Leonard Rodrigo (Sri Lanka Air Force representative)
- Lt. R.P. Roshan (Sri Lanka Navy representative)
This quorum, hand-picked and coerced, approved the move that shattered Sri Lanka Rugby’s integrity.
Those Who Were Excused
Several council members officially excused themselves from the meeting distancing themselves from the plot:
- Lasitha Gunaratne – SLR Vice President
- Kiran Atapattu – Treasurer
- Chula Dharmadasa – Council Member
- Fazal Mohamed – Council Member
- Prasantha Wimalasena – Council Member
- Roshan Deen – Council Member
- Lt. Gen. Daya Ratnayake – Council Member
- Brig. Sunil Ranasinghe – Committee Member
- Tuan Dole – Rep. Central Province
- Nazeem Mohamed – President, Western Province
- Luxman Wijesooriya – Rep. Sri Lanka Universities
- Sajith Malikarachchi – Rep. Kandy SC
Those Who Were Absent
Others were marked absent, though their silence still casts a long shadow:
- Rear Admiral Jayantha Perera – Council Member
- Arjun Dharmadasa – President, Central Province RFU
- Nishantha Dia – President, Wayamba RFU
- Nelantha De Silva – President, Uva Province RFU
- Orville Fernando – President, SL Referees Society
- Susantha Mendis – SL Schools RFA
- Ransiri Sahabandu – Secretary, CR & FC
- SSP H. Marso – Secretary, SL Police SC
- Patrick Jayasinghe – Rep. CH & FC
A Pre-Planned Fraud
At the meeting, SLR President Asanga Seneviratne declared that if Sri Lanka were to “take its standard to the next level,” foreign players were essential. He invoked IRB Regulation 8 on eligibility, conveniently ignoring that none of the three Fijians satisfied the criteria of birth, parentage, or 36-month residency.
Secretary Nalin De Silva then elaborated on a Ministry-backed scheme, claiming that 56 foreigners had applied to represent Sri Lanka across sports, with four earmarked for rugby, sponsored by Ceylon Premier Sports Ltd. Their airfare was covered; their eligibility fabricated.
In effect, it was a state-sanctioned fraud.
The Real Cost
World Rugby was not fooled. The punishment was swift: a £50,000 fine, deducted from Sri Lanka’s development funds. That money could have built youth programmes, paid players, or developed infrastructure. Instead, it vanished to cover the sins of officials who still roam free, some even thriving in today’s administration.
Hypocrisy in Parliament
In a twist of grotesque irony, Sports Minister Sunil Kumara Gamage recently attacked Namal Rajapaksa in Parliament, condemning the use of Fijians in the 2014 squad. Yet the very people who orchestrated that scandal, Hassan Sinhawansa and Nalin De Silva are today being mollycoddled and used by him to run the country’s rugby affairs.
Minister of Sports Gamage, who heralded his entry with a bang by suspending Maxwell de Silva the NOCSL Secretray General, has shown no consistency. He continues to protect violators like Rohan Abeykoon (Current NSC Committee Member, who breaks the sports law by being a sports goods clothing supplier to SLC) and now shields the very men who engineered the Fijian fiasco.
Nothing Has Changed
Even today, the Tri Forces vote looms large in the upcoming SLR elections. Just weeks ago, Nalin De Silva was spotted escorting Presidential hopeful Pavithra “Pavi” Fernando to meet the current Defence Secretary General Sampath Thuyacontha, seeking military backing.
It is the same playbook, the same manipulations, the same disgrace just under a new government banner.
A Call for Justice
If the current government can arrest and remand former President Ranil Wickremesinghe for misappropriating state funds, then why should these 12 men, Asanga Seneviratne, Nalin De Silva, Hassan Sinhawansa, Rajiv Perera, Anver Jayah, and the seven Tri Forces officers escape scrutiny?
Justice demands they be measured by the same yardstick. They plotted in secret, they broke international rules, they wasted public money, and they betrayed Sri Lanka Rugby.
The President Must Act
This is no longer just a rugby scandal. It is a national scandal. The parallels to Watergate are unmistakable: secret meetings, deliberate cover-ups, abuse of power, and the betrayal of public trust.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake must act. If he does not, the NPP will carry the same stench of hypocrisy and corruption as the regimes it promised to replace.
Rugby has been disgraced for long enough. The files are here. The names are here. The evidence is here. The question is: will there finally be accountability?
Right of Reply: Defamatory Insinuations and Factual Clarifications Regarding Sri Lanka Rugby
To: The Editor, Morning Telegraph
Subject: Rejoinder to “SL Rugby’s Fijian Scandal: The Secret Plot & Those Responsible in Destroying the Country’s Reputation”
From: Hafeez Marso – Deputy Inspector General of Police (Retd)
Dear Editor,
I write to exercise my right of reply and to demand immediate correction to the above-titled article, which contains unfounded insinuations, baseless personal attacks, and misleading representations that harm reputations and violate fundamental principles of journalistic fairness.
1) Malicious Aspersions on Absentees;
The article implies that individuals who were not present at an alleged “secret meeting” are complicit by silence. This insinuation is false, defamatory, and logically flawed.
I was neither informed of such a meeting nor invited. The “minutes” posted in the said article were never officially served or circulated through legitimate channels. To suggest guilt or complicity based on non-attendance at a meeting I was never notified of is not only irrational, but also a clear attempt to smear reputations through innuendo.
2) Breach of Process Integrity and Transparency
Sri Lanka Rugby’s governance framework demands proper notice, documentation, and adherence to process. Where such protocols are ignored or selectively applied, speculation cannot be elevated to the status of fact.
Assertions regarding decision – making processes must be based on verifiable documentation, not hearsay or conjecture. Any departure from due process should be scrutinized, not defended by responsible journalism.
3) Uncalled-for Personal Remarks
The article digresses into personal commentary, unjustifiably dragging in names unrelated to the matter at hand. Such commentary lacks relevance and ournalistic merit.
Responsible reporting is grounded in fact and relevance to public interest. Personal attacks, insinuations, and character assassinations serve neither the reader nor the cause of transparency.
4) Clarifying My Record and Reputation
The article makes oblique references that cast doubt on my character and integrity. Ordinarily, I do not find it necessary to enumerate my contributions, but in this instance, I am compelled to correct the record.
My service to rugby and national sport spans decades:
Sri Lanka Police Rugby:
13 seasons A-Division (1979–1991);
Sri Lanka caps (1984–1990); Coach (2002–2004);
Coach, Police Rugby 2001 – 2004
Secretary, Police Rugby (2013–2016);
Member of multiple rugby committees.
Sri Lanka Rugby (SLR):
Appointed to the Executive Committee under Clause 31.3 of the former Constitution (co-opted, no voting rights);
Chairman – Disciplinary Committee (2019/20);
Chairman – Constitution Drafting Committee (2018).
National Appointments:
Member – National Sports Council (2018, 2023);
National Sports Selection Committee (2020);
Rugby Advisory Committees –
National (2021),
Schools (2024);
Working Task Force – Rugby (2025) and SL Karate-Do Federation (2025).
Other Sports Contributions – Basketball
Represented Sri Lanka in basketball (1978–1984);
National Championship titles, the biggest Cager event:
Western Province (1976),
Mercantile (1978), and
Police (1988–1991), winning six National championships across a 13-year span.
I retired from public servicr with a clean sheet after serving 38 years. These are my credentials of a servant-leader, not the caricature advanced in the article.

5) Formal Request for Correction and Apology
In view of the above, I respectfully request that you to;
1. Publish this rejoinder in full, with equal prominence to the original article;
2. Amend the original article to remove defamatory and misleading references to me and other absentees;
3. Issue a formal apology to those named or implicitly maligned.
Should timely corrective action not be taken, I reserve all legal rights and remedies, including but not limited to claims for defamation and applications for take down orders, public corrections, and costs.
Yours faithfully,
Hafeez Marso
Deputy Inspector General of Police (Retd)
Good Marso, you call yourself an officer and a gentleman. Then surely you know the rugby fraternity deserves nothing less than the truth. It is time the Ministry finally calls for a full, independent inquiry so that the real story is laid bare. And when that truth is established, every single individual who sat at that infamous meeting should be handed a life ban—barred from holding any position in any sports body in Sri Lanka or overseas.
What greater disgrace could there be? What greater shame on our sporting identity than to see shameless individuals, one of whom has never even played the game, continuously pulling the strings in rugby? This same person—rejected by clubs, schools, and associations alike—has been exposed time and again for unscrupulous activities and yet still finds protection within the system.
Millions in financial receipts remain unaccounted for. Sponsorship funds have evaporated without trace. International credibility has been shredded. And still, this mastermind—this architect of rugby’s rot—is allowed to operate, using influence and manipulation to keep rugby trapped in his web.
Sri Lanka Rugby cannot and will not heal unless there is zero tolerance. The rugby fraternity must stand united: those responsible must never again be allowed anywhere near the sport. Life bans, accountability, and transparency are the only way forward. Anything less would be a betrayal of the game, the players, and the people.
We must accept the reality: a document has been leaked. It was hidden deliberately, and now it is in the public domain. Let us not blame the journalists for exposing it—after all, their duty is to shine light where others would rather keep darkness. The real question is not about who leaked it, but why it was hidden in the first place.
At the core of this fiasco lies a simple, undeniable fact: Sri Lanka Rugby is being forced to pay a £50,000 fine because of the reckless actions of a few individuals. This is not the time for cover-ups or petty finger-pointing. It is not the time to launder dirty linen to protect old allies. It is the time to confront the truth head-on.
Sri Lanka Rugby has been used, abused, and betrayed. And now the price of that betrayal is being paid not by the guilty, but by the institution itself—by the players, the unions, and the wider rugby community. Until accountability is enforced and the culprits are removed once and for all, we will continue to suffer for their sins.
The Fijian fiasco is not about a leak. It is about a lie. And the longer that lie is allowed to stand, the deeper rugby will sink into shame.