Pakistan Olympic Association

23-Jan-2013

The News

Alam Zeb Safi Sunday, January 20, 2013

KARACHI: Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) has surprisingly decided against mentioning anything in the minutes of its Board meeting

held on January 8 in Islamabad about the real decision that was taken there.

In the meeting, it was decided that a seven-member ad-hoc committee would hold the elections of the Pakistan Olympic Association

(POA) and provincial Olympic associations besides looking after the day-to-day business of sports in the country but nothing like this

has been mentioned in the minutes, a copy of which is available with this correspondent.

It seems that the government has gone on its back foot. Well-placed sources admitted that the minutes of the Board meeting have

not mentioned anything about the core issue and the real facts have not been disclosed.

But sources said that some of the details of the minutes have been withheld and are likely to be released on Monday (tomorrow).

They suspect that may be due to fear of international sports governing body (IOC), violation of court orders or due to political pressure

the Board might not have disclosed anything about it.

The Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination has been repeatedly claiming through various media reports that they would follow the

Supreme Court order and would implement the national sports policy but practically it has always shown reluctance to take any solid

step.

The IOC has invited both the POA and the government on February 15 in its headquarters in Lausanne to discuss the real conflict

between the two sports governing bodies in Pakistan before taking any decision.

A source very close to the whole affair revealed that in the reign of the current federal minister for IPC Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani nothing

concrete would be done and the government would not go for implementing the national sports policy as the minister is close friend

of the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) President and the PML (Q) leader Faisal Saleh Hayat. The source said the new secretary of

the IPC also does not know anything about sports and it seems that nothing would happen in near future.

Meanwhile, it has been mentioned in the minutes that the 32nd National Games would be re-organised as most of the athletes

could not take part in the already conducted event in Lahore under the umbrella of the POA. The minutes of the meeting also said

that an organising body for holding National Games, which they call as ‘national event’, will be finalized in due course of time.

“The Board in principle approved the adoption of Model Constitution by all national sports federations with the salient features placed

before the Board. It was, however, decided that a copy of the proposed constitution would be provided to the federations to enable

them to examine the documents in detail so as to ensure that the constitution was not in conflict with the principles of their respective

international sports federations,” the minutes also said.

‘The News’ tried to contact top officials of the IPC and the PSB but they were not attending the calls.