IAAF doesn’t recognize the present officials of AASL

The sports election saga took another turn yesterday as the world governing body of International Athletics ‘IAAF’ sent an email to its local body stating that the IAAF does not recognize the present office-bearers.
According to the email sent from IAAF to Athletics Association of Sri Lanka (AASL), the world governing body had asked to conduct an election according to their constitution without political involvement, as they do not recognize the concluded election was an independent one.
Nevertheless the present president of AASL Sugath Thialakaratne said they are going to discuss the matter with the IAAF to resolve the issue.
“We should discuss and look what we can do with the present situation. We can’t put country’s athletics in danger with the World Championship and World Congress coming up in two months,” said Thilakaratne during the Asian Athletics championship in Wuhan.
According to the sources close to AASL, failing to do so will put country’s athletics in jeopardy.
The IAAF will ban the local body which will prevent Sri Lankan athletes taking part in international events including the forthcoming IAAF World Championship in two months time, IAAF World Youth, Asian Grand Prix, and Commonwealth Youth Games etc which will be held this year.
Three members of Sri Lankan athletics delegation at the Asian Championship including Sugath Thilakaratne had been summoned to an IAAF delegation and they had explained the situation to them.
The IAAF had said they don’t recognize the laws which had been implemented by the Sports Ministry which had interfered with the autonomy of the national body.
Prior to this, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), International Cricket Council (ICC), FINA and ARFU and many international bodies had warned Sri Lanka about the possible bans of their local bodies if they were not conducted according to their respective constitutions which had been approved by the world body.