Winner of the inaugural edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) Jaffna Stallions has hit back at the cricket tournament’s organizers over the team’s termination.
The franchise became the third team to have faced termination from the league, following the Colombo Kings and Dambulla Viiking.
The termination comes after joint action by the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) and league rights holders – Innovative Production Group FZE (IPG) of Dubai – for what is being termed as reasons of non-compliance.
Issuing a statement, the owners of the Jaffna Stallions franchise said “I’m afraid there’s bad news coming, we tried everything to make it work. The short version is we absolutely did not drive this decision.”
The bottom line is the lack of transparency and trust made it nearly impossible for us to operate, yet we still committed to keep going because we love Jaffna and the work we are doing in Sri Lanka is meaningful. This was followed by a series of strange events including people around the league verbally offering us to take over another team instead.
The entire thing is strange, and makes it impossible for any good operator to run a successful franchise or league, the statement said.
Jaffna Stallions is a solidly run organization, as you can see by our fanbase, our social media, and investment in the team — it should be obvious we know what we’re doing.
Some of our investors are bringing T20 cricket to the U.S. and we initially hoped to leverage our footprint in Sri Lanka to develop players and rotate them for Major League Cricket and back to LPL, but unfortunately after this situation we are forced to look elsewhere.
Sorry fans. We love you all! It was such a fun year, it’s just unfortunate that we are here. Thank you. – the one, the only, Jaffna Stallions, the statement concluded.
Meanwhile, with the announcing of the second edition of the LPL to be held later this year, Sri Lanka-born British entrepreneur, Allirajah Subaskaran, has been announced as the new owner of the Jaffna franchise.
The new owner of the Jaffna franchise expects to rope in some big international and local stars, with the LPL Player’s Draft scheduled for next month. (NewsWire)