LAHORE: While less than a year is left for Pakistan to host the 2023 South Asian Games (SAG), the organising committee and the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) are still not on one page on several issues.

A meeting of the organising committee was held here on Thursday and it concluded with several key matters remaining unresolved.

Pakistan is set to host the 14th edition of the sub-regional sports gala featuring athletes from seven countries in March next year. In the past, Pakistan organised the multi-sports event twice, in 1989 and 2004, in Islamabad.

According to a press release issued by the Punjab Sports Department Secretary Fuad Hashim Rabbani, who presided over the meeting, the others who attended it included Additional Secretary Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) Syed Waqar-ul-Hasan, Pakistan Sports Board Director General retired Col Asif Zaman, Director General Sports Punjab Javed Chohan, POA Secretary Khalid Mehmood, IPC Joint Secretary Fayyaz, Deputy Secretary POA M. Jahangir, Associate Secretary POA Ahmer Malik, Treasurer POA M. Shafiq, Director Pakistan Coaching Centre Nasrullah and Secretary Punjab Olympic Association Idris Haider Khawaja.

“Overall, 27 sports disciplines will be competed at the 2023 South Asian Games out of which 14 will be staged in Lahore. The venues of two disciplines will be decided on Monday,” said the press release.

“The establishment of South Asian Games 2023 Secretariat in Lahore, venues, transportation, accommodation and other [related] facilities were discussed in detail during the important meeting,” it added.

When contacted, Col Asif said while 14 disciplines would be contested in Lahore the remaining 13 would be staged in Islamabad.

But when asked if the POA had the recommendation to include Faisalabad and Sialkot, too for some disciplines for the regional sports gala, he said the government wanted to uphold the message of national unity by avoiding to host all the events in cities of just one province.

When asked if some events of the 2023 SAG might be allocated to Peshawar if it was not possible to hold any games in Karachi and Quetta due to long distances, the PSB director general reckoned it would be better to confine the games to Lahore and Islamabad and not expand the activities to many cities.

However POA secretary Khalid Mahmood, when contacted, said he had urged the government to revisit the formation of the 2023 South Asian Games Organising Committee which according to him did not include all the stakeholders.

Khalid further said the POA had also suggested to let the sports federations decide in which city they wanted to host their respective discipline.

“The POA has also recommended shifting the disciplines of boxing, archery and badminton to DHA, Lahore from Islamabad as world-class facilities are available at the DHA, which has recently hosted the national championships of boxing and badminton”, Khalid added.

“If these three disciplines are shifted to Lahore, it will be the venue for 17 disciplines and not 14.”

But when asked if the POA had withdrawn its earlier demand of holding the games in Sialkot, Faisalabad and Lahore and a few in Islamabad, he responded in negative.

Instead, Khalid added, he suggested at the meeting to visit the venues of Sialkot and Faisalabad again to have a look at the required facilities available in these cities.

“The POA has also suggested the opening and closing ceremonies [of the South Asian Games] be held in Lahore. However, a final decision in this regard is [yet] to be taken,” Khalid added.

He said on Monday another meeting would be held with Punjab Sports Board Director General Javed Chohan to hold further discussions on several issues concerning the 2023 SAG.

Meanwhile, no dates for the SAG could be finalised at the meeting.

Both Asif and Khalid said the dates for the games would be discussed again as an earlier plan to hold the games during March could clash with the 2023 Pakistan Super League (PSL) T20 cricket tournament, which would also be organised in February-March.

The PSB director general said a detailed discussion on the dates would be held, adding the second available option to host the SAG was September-November window.

Asif, however, said the POA had the right to take decisions since the SAG was its domain and the government would move in a positive way to make the games successful and to convey a soft image of Pakistan to all the visiting athletes and officials.

Asif said Pakistan earned a good name across the sporting world after successfully hosting Australian cricket team recently.

“Now the government will do its best efforts to make the 2023 South Asian Games another successful story,” the POA secretary stated.

Published in Dawn, April 8th, 2022