LAHORE, Jan 15: The federal government, while expressing concern over the performance of the national sports federations, has decided to select 15 different games in which Pakistan could earn some medals at international level after giving them more attention and funds.

The decision was taken at the end of the first two-day meeting of the Pakistan Sports Board Director General Amir Hamza Gillani with different national sports federations officials at Lahore on Thursday.

“During the fiscal year 2007-08 over 80 sports teams participated in international events but their performance remained very poor. We must make tangible efforts to produce sportspersons of international calibre.

The need of the time is that all national sports federations should come forward and supplement the Government efforts in this regard,” an official press release stated.

“Keeping in view this perturbing situation, the government has decided to prioritize the 15 games in which we have potential to win the medals at international level. These are athletics, football, hockey, judo, kabaddi, karate, squash, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, weightlifting, wrestling, wushu, boxing, billiards and snooker,” it said.

“The government will provide administrative, technical and financial support to them to raise the standard of respective games,” it said.

Furthermore, Hamza also informed the participants of the meeting that the government would start the accountability of the federations for which the audit would be conducted.

“The government has funded millions of rupees to the federations and results are not up to the mark. The government has introduced accountability in sports and to ensure that government funds are being spent in the right area and there is no misuse of funds, the Accountant General of Pakistan will conduct audit of the national sports federations shortly,” the press release further said.

Meanwhile, the officials of the national sports federations were asked to prepare their plans for fielding strong contingents in the forthcoming events like the 11th South Asian Games Bangladesh 2009, 16th Asian Games China 2010, 19th Commonwealth Games, India 2010 and 30th Olympic Games China 2012.

It was also decided that the federations would submit the reports on their activities held in 2008 and the calendar of activities for 2009.