Sports complexes to be built in nine provinces [May 28 2011]

Fully equipped sports complexes will be constructed in nine provinces to popularise sports at village level Minister of Sports Mahindananda Aluthgamage said.

"We want to take sports to villages and want to promote sports clubs in each AG division to play all major sports. At the moment there are limited number of sports clubs including 30 clubs playing rugby and 20 playing horkey. Youths will be trained at AG level, then the selected players will be sent for further traning at district level, then to the provincial level and the best will be selected at national level", he said adding that the government inteneds to popularise sports which is now limited to Colombo among the rural youth.

He said each sports complex would get one ground for cricket with seating capacity for 1,500 spectators and two grounds for rugby, foot ball and athletics with a seating capacity for 5,000. 

Minister Aluthgamage said President Mahinda Rajapaksa has instructed him to construct the first sports complex in Kilinochchi to provide the opportunity for the Tamil youth in the North to excel in sports .