Up Country Lions to play in Dialog Champions League this year

S.M. Jiffrey Abdeen - Kandy Sports Correspondent

The inclusion of Up Country Lions from Nawalapitiya in the Dialog Champions League (DCL) by the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) is a very good move which will give a tremendous boost to soccer not only in Nawalapitiya but also Up Country areas which is starved of quality soccer.

Soccer is popular in Nawalapitiya and not very long ago it was above all other sports in popularity schools like St. Mary’s College, Kathiresan College, and Anuraddha Kumara Maha Vidyalaya in addition to other schools from Kataboala and Ulapane played this game.

There were clubs like Gallebodde SC, Shamrocks SC, old Marians SC, Nawalapitiya youths and Nawalapitiya United played at Club level. It is not known whether the inter club tournament were conducted every year. Even if they had been it must have been at a low key as hardly any media publicity has been given to it.

But the Nawalapitiya Football League has been participating regularly int eh inter league tournament matches which is a clear indication there is football in existence in this plantation.

In this scenario the presence of Up Country Lions at the top level tournament like the Dialog League Championship should bring back the popularity soccer had at Nawalapitiya in the Past. Up Country Lions will be one of the top 20 clubs from the country participating in this championship. The other clubs will be from Colombo, Kandy, Kaltuara, Matara, and Negombo.

An added interest will be fielding of foreign players by the clubs. The available talent at Nawalapitiya is not strong enough to match the other teams in the tournament like Ratnams, Saunders, Java Lane, Colombo FC, Nandamithra SC, Pelicans FC just to name a few.

Thus Up Country Lions should take fall advantage of fielding non-national players to support the local talent to create a good impact to draw the crowds to witness matches. The FFSL has permitted three foreign players to play in a team. This is a very good decision.

These was time the spectator base was eroding at club rugby matches, especially in Kandy. Then the SLRFU permitted for ingress to play for clubs. This decision was directed at not only to attract the crowds but also to improve the standard of rugby. Both targets were achieved crowds came back witness matches and often to capacity. More schools took to rugby, and those already playing the game took it in a bigger most of them played for trophies against other schools. Thus rugby was made extremely popular and some of the schools hired foreign coaches to put the young ruggerites through their paces.

Thus much could be achieved by playing foreignness in club teams.

This is not something new to upcountry Lion as last year sponsored by Crysbro a poultry producing firm and farm from obscurity made a big impact in the local rugby scene. In their debut they did well in the league and entered the semi-finals of the Clifford Cup knock out tournament were played at other venues bus loads of supporters were there to cheer the team.

Thus what was achieved at rugby could be achieved at soccer. In Jayatillake Sports Complex, Nawalapitiya has one of the best stadiums in the country. It is will designed and well equipped including a separate media enclosure with reclining chair sand tables for the media to sit and write sadly how many other rugby venues provides this facility. Therefore venue will not be a problems at Nawalapitiya.

Thus the soccer starved fans at Nawalapitiya will be in for a grand feast of soccer when the DCL tournament gets under way shortly. Credit also should go to FFSL in their endeavors to make soccer popular in this country.