Chevron Lubricants Lanka PLC will continue sponsorship of Rugby

By Ranjan ANANDAPPA

RUGBY: After a little deliberation, Chevron Lubricant's Lanka PLC finally decided to support the country's rugby football, sponsoring the league and the knock-out tournaments for a further three more years, making it a record fourteen years in succession in helping to uplift the standard of rugby in the country.

The Managing Director CEO of Chevron Lubricant's Kishu Gomes said that the reasons to continue with the sponsorship was due to the game itself. While there has been ups and downs, the game has progressed through the sponsorship.

There are many facets that has to fall into place in order to take the game into the next level. After cricket, I believe, rugby is the most popular game and the most admired one in the country.

A player could be known extensively by the population. But admiration is something vast, and rugby instills that admiration. He felt that his organisation believed that they had a social obligation to support sports.

"It is with sports that a country could move towards. If you look around, there isn't a single country that has a strong economy with weak sporting capabilities.

The countries with a strong economy has strong sporting personalities who are famous in one or more than one sport. So through this sponsorship, we will be able to contribute towards changing the attitudes of the Sri Lankans and also creating the productive efficient strong work force our country needs." said Kishu Gomes.

He thanked the media for the support rendered to Caltex and the SLRFU and also hoped for the continuous support and the due recognition for the sponsors which will be an addition reason to support the game better in the coming three years.

Gomes further said that as an organisation, his intention was not only promoting sports, but various other aspects too.

And from a marketing point of view, he had many alternatives available in promoting their brands and corporate product brands.

And, as they have done in the past, an evaluation was conducted on all alternatives available in order to spend the money, but finally they came to the conclusion of continuing to support rugby.