Encouragement allowance for athletic coaches

The Minister of Sports Mahindananda Aluthgamage said that the Ministry is looking to give a special allowance to coaches who train talented provincial level athletes to perform competently at bothnational and international level.

The Minister of Sports expressed these ideas at a meeting held yesterday to explain about the Kreeda Shakthi programme to Sports Officers from the Central Province at the auditorium of the Kandy District Secretariat. Expressing his ideas at the meeting the Minister of Sports stated that there seems to be reluctance among the provincial coaches to hand in the talented athletes they have trained from the provincial level to the national coaches when the athletes are selected to the national squads.

Behaviour such as this from the provincial coaches becomes a barrier towards selecting good athletes who can perform well at both national and international tournaments.

Therefore, the Ministry of Sports has decided to implement a programme to encourage the provincial coaches by providing them with a kind of sponsorship.

As a result, the Ministry of Sports will be giving an allowance of Rs 100,000 to encourage the coaches that mould athletes to represent Sri Lanka at national and international level.