Rohitha Rajapaksha attacks referee

Rugby Referees are facing a life threatening situation following their complaint lodged with Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union against the President’s son Rohitha Rajapaksa.

The complaint urged to probe on the incident where Rohitha had assaulted a Rugby referee at a recent match.

Rohitha Rajapaksa assaulted Rugby referee Dimitri Gunasekera on May 05th at the Havelock Grounds in Colombo after the Navy lost a qualifying match.

The incident took place when the Police A team defeated Navy knocking the latter out of the Inter-club Rugby sevens tournament organized by the Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union.

The youngest son of President Mahinda Rajapaksa was captaining the Navy A team at the game.

Following the Navy defeat, Rohitha Rajapaksa picked up referee Gunesekera by the collar and assaulted him in full public view stating that the Navy lost because he did not count the try points.

Eyewitnesses stated that the referee might have sustained severe injuries if other referees had not intervened.

However, desiring to put an end to this incident, captain of the Navy team and elder brother of Rohitha - Yoshitha Rajapaksa had intervened, even slapping his younger sibling in a bid to break up the confrontation.

Referees representing Dimitri Gunasekera had refused to continue and the tournament was held up for around one hour.

Again, Yoshitha Rajapaksa has intervened and requested to continue, stating that this was not an issue that was needed to be prolonged and cause disruption.

The referees have stated that the actions of Rohitha are completely inappropriate for a player and it is illegal to threaten or cause physical harm to a referee.

They have informed that they are ready to consider standing for the next matches if Rohitha Rajapaksa apologized.

However, Rohitha has vehemently refused to apologize.

Finally, after nearly an hour of discussions the referees were compelled to resume the tournament.

Sri Lanka Rugby Referees Society has made a written request to the President of Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union Asanga Seneviratne to hold a proper disciplinary inquiry regarding the incident.

Speaking to ‘ Sri Lanka Mirror’ President of Sri Lanka Rugby Referees Society - Orville Fernando said that actions should be taken against wrongdoers irrespective of their position to avoid the recurrence of such a situation.

If not, the referees might consider boycotting the next games in line, he adds.

Upon contacting the President of Sri Lanka Rugby Football Union - Asanga Seneviratne, he stated that an investigation is under way and results will be released within a week.

However, the Rugby internal sources are in doubt whether Asanga Seneviratne, who reached a higher position in sports and excelled in business with the support of Rajapaksas, will conduct any investigation at all.

The ‘Sunday Leader’ publication, which was highly critical of the government, too, was also bought by Asanga Seneviratne.