The president of the Asian Football Confederation, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, has praised the progress made by Sri Lanka’s national football team in recent years, Hiru News reported.
The remarks came at a meeting between the AFC president and Jaswar Umar, president of Football Sri Lanka, held alongside the AFC Extraordinary Congress in Tokyo.
Sheikh Salman said Sri Lanka’s climb in the FIFA World Rankings reflected the country’s capacity for growth within regional football and its prospects for the future.
Two new stadiums
Umar thanked the AFC leadership for its continuing support of the game in Sri Lanka, singling out the confederation’s role in arranging two new high-standard football stadiums to improve the country’s infrastructure.
Beyond financial assistance, the AFC provides infrastructure and technical support intended to strengthen the game from grassroots level through to high performance, according to the statement.
Two years of gains
Hiru reports that Sri Lankan football has made significant progress over the past two years under Umar’s leadership, pointing to the national team’s international performances, its rise in the FIFA rankings, the development of domestic competitions and improvements to sporting infrastructure.
Sri Lanka’s recent record supports the direction of travel if not the scale of it. The national side beat Mauritius 3-2 in a friendly this month, and earlier hosted a FIFA Series tournament — the kind of fixture that was out of reach during the years the country spent under FIFA suspension.
Not reported
Hiru does not give Sri Lanka’s current FIFA ranking or say how far it has risen, and does not identify where the two stadiums are to be built, what they will cost, who is funding them or when they are due to be completed. No figure is given for the AFC’s financial assistance. The report does not say what else was discussed, and quotes neither official directly. It does not state the date of the Tokyo congress.
The statement appears to originate with Football Sri Lanka rather than the AFC, and no other verified newsroom had filed on the meeting at the time of writing.
