IT’S difficult to find the perfect way to describe retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan, Pakistan’s Olympic chief since 2004. For many of his supporters, he is a source of pride; an honest and sincere sports personality. For his detractors and opponents, a man who is relentlessly clinging on to power.

In his 17 years at the helm of the Pakistan Olympic Assoc­iation (POA), the country has failed to bag a single medal across five Olympic Games. And with the Pakistan’s contingent returning from the recently-concluded Tokyo Games without a medal across their necks, calls for Arif to step down have only gotten louder. So much so, that the government wants him to go.

The 72-year-old has seen that happen in the past. When running for his third term as president in 2012, a dispute saw the formation of parallel POAs; one led by Arif which was recognised by the International Olympic Committee and the other headed by his long-time opponent retired Maj Gen Akram Sahi which was backed by the government. Then, Pakistan narrowly missed an IOC suspension after the government backed down and vowed not to interfere in matters of the Arif-led POA.

If anything, it was a show of power and foothold Arif enjoyed in the IOC and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA). Then, he was just into his second term as OCA vice-president for South Asia, having been first elected to that post in 2007. In 2019, he got re-elected to that post for a fourth time. Imagine the influence he yields now should it come down to another showdown between the IOC and the government. Of course, having the support of world sports’ biggest kingmaker, OCA chief Shiekh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, helps.

That sense of security is palpable when he speaks.

“It takes at least eight years to develop influence in continental bodies and then utilise that to help sport in your country,” Arif told Dawn in a wide-ranging telephone interview in the early hours of Tuesday, just a few hours after he’d attended a marathon news conference in Lahore via video link from the United States where the POA had tried to defend itself against accusations made by the government.

“We have seven officials from Pakistan in different committees of the OCA and it is of course helpful when programmes are offered by the OCA for the National Olympic Committees,” he added. “We’ve worked hard to achieve that position and what we want is that Pakistan remains at the forefront of international sport.”

Arif is one of several officials from Pakistan who have risen to significant positions at global governing bodies but sport in the country is still lagging far behind. And it needs no reminding that international sport is a heady mix of politics and corruption.

In 2017, Sheikh Ahmad, the longtime ally of IOC chief Thomas Bach, resigned from the FIFA Council — the decision-making body of world’s football governing body — following the release of documents released by the US Department of Justice linked him to a bribery claim made by Asian Football Confederation official Richard Lai; the president of the Guam Football Association pleading guilty to taking $1m in bribes.

A year later, Sheikh Ahmad stepped aside from some Olympic positions — as an IOC member, and president of the global group of national Olympic bodies ANOC — after being charged with forgery in an alleged Kuwait coup plot, the trial of which begins in Geneva from August 30.

Member associations are by and large a microcosm of their associated international bodies but Arif denies any sort of wrongdoing during his tenure as POA chief and as a measure of transparency, said the POA will make public its audited financial statements.

“We’re writing to the IOC to conduct a thorough audit of the POA on the funding it receives from it,” he said. “We conduct our audits through local firms each year and reports are sent to the IOC which scrutinises it before releasing further funding to us. The last audit of the POA by the IOC was conducted in 2016 and we’re asking them to look through our accounts thoroughly over the last five years and once the report is finalised, we will share it on our website.”

Earlier, at the news conference, the POA had adopted the stance that it wasn’t bound by law to share its audited financial statements. It added that the members of the all-powerful general council, which elects the POA chief, are all shown the financial statements.

‘NOT A CLOSED SHOP’

There have been questions about the composition of the general council especially on the selection of individual members. There were 14 of those in POA’s elective general council meeting in 2019, from squash legend Jahangir Khan and hockey great Islahuddin Siddiqi to politician Begum Ishrat Ashraf. Arif’s opponents allege that those members ensure Arif retains a stranglehold over the POA presidency.

“All the members have a sporting background,” Arif said, adding the general council “wasn’t a closed shop”.

“We’re open and transparent and the electoral college is verified by the IOC. We have representation from federations, with three votes for Olympic sports federations and two votes from non-Olympic ones [like bodybuilding, tug-of-war and wushu], as well as departments.”

Arif expressed sympathy for the country’s federations and said apart from the Pakistan Football Federation, which receives heavy funding from FIFA, others don’t get too much.

“It’s a wrong notion that federations get a lot of funding from international bodies,” he said, adding that it was the government’s role to provide them with funds to prepare athletes.

“Funding for elite training all over the world comes from the governments which are using sports as a soft power and as a means of projection,” he said. “If you look at the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, four to five of them can be achieved through sports.

“The government doesn’t like it when we talk about that, about how we can develop sport in the country,” added Arif, stressing that POA’s task was to “promote Olympism and not develop sport”.

At the news conference in Lahore, Arif’s POA distributed a 130-page dossier defining its role, on the role of the Pakistan Sports Board, as well as attaching court orders and a copy of the 2014 Lausanne Agreement between the government and the IOC. There were also comparisons drawn to India’s sports budget.

Across the border, though, the Indian Olympic Association has sought private rather than government funding and sought more from the Olympic Solidarity programme. A Reuters report in 2014 cited India’s IOC member Randir Singh claiming the country had received $1.2 million to fund its programmes ahead of the London Olympics.

Pakistan has Syed Shahid Ali, the son of Arif’s predecessor Syed Wajid Ali, as an IOC member since 1996 and Arif was asked why the POA had not sought funding from Olympic Solidarity to develop athletes despite the fact that Sheikh Ahmad headed the fund.

“The IOC Solidarity looks after 204 associations and it’s not that easy,” Arif contested. “We got IOC scholarships for the three shooters who represented Pakistan at the Tokyo Games.”

Arif says he remains committed to helping sports flourish in Pakistan but remains coy on his future plans and personal ambitions. But with the POA constitution requiring its high-ranking officials to retire upon attaining the age of 75, this may well be his last term as president.

He might not be there as the country’s Olympic chief when the next Games open three years from now but they will offer him a chance for redemption if the POA chalks out a plan which sees Pakistan end its Olympic medal drought in Paris.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2021