Although the Sri Lankan team for the Asian Youth Netball Championship to be held in South Korea has been selected, it has not yet been approved by the Sports Minister.
Accordingly, the training activities have been halted.
The sports minister’s approval has been delayed since a group of parents of some players who were not selected have continuously submitted petitions accusing the selection process.
Most of these petitioners are the parents of athletes from a school in Kurunegala from where the coach has also been selected.
Since the school she coached won the championship in the inter-school netball tournament, the coach had argued with the selection committee that the Sri Lankan youth team should also include more players from her school.
She had reportedly incited the parents of the players and had also used several journalists for this purpose, Sri Lanka Mirror learns.
This group of journalists had recently brought four or five petitioning parents in front of the Ministry of Sports and arranged to hold a protest. However, it did not receive enough publicity from any major media institution.
Meanwhile, the Netball Selection Committee has said that it will resign if the Sports Minister orders to conduct the selections once again.
If that happens, the experts said that the Championship will be over by the time a new selection committee is appointed and new selections are made.
