LAHORE, Dec 3: Fearing a very long isolation from international sports events at home, President of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) Gen Arif Hasan on Friday said his organisation could not endure slightest of slips in providing security to the athletes and officials in the upcoming National Games.

“We can’t take any risk at this moment as any untoward security-related incident will not allow us to hold any international [sporting] event for the next 20 years,” Arif said while addressing a news conference here.

Asked if the POA had given the organisers security clearance for the Games, already postponed thrice on safety grounds, he said final security clearance could not be given till the last day.

In a major decision taken in national sports on Friday, the POA Executive Committee while including hockey and  wushu in the National Games, refused to give football — a highly popular sport — a slot in the national sports gala, scheduled to be held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from Dec 25 to 31. The organisers — with the consent of the POA — had excluded hockey, football, wushu, cycling and a few other games, to curtail the extent of the Games for better security arrangements. Subsequently, all the sports federations concerned objected to this decision.

However, in the end only hockey and wushu were included to raise the men’s disciplines to 19, and women’s to seven. The men’s events for the Games are: athletics, swimming, bodybuilding, boxing, handball, judo, kabaddi, karate, taekwondo, shooting, squash, table tennis, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling, netball, baseball, hockey and wushu.

Whereas women will feature in athletics, swimming, judo, karate, taekwondo, table tennis and netball. Arif said though the Olympic association and the National Games organisers were striving to provide maximum possible security to all the athletes during their stay in the province, some disciplines were excluded from the Games only for the sake of better security.

Arif added that a POA security team headed by Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqoob, president Pakistan Volleyball Federation, would remain in contact with the organisers to ensure all the arrangements were finalised smoothly.

“We have given the organisers various parameters to follow and to ensure the implementation [of those parameters] for staging the Games properly,” he said, adding all the athletes and officials would get safe accommodation and transportation facilities to reach their respective venues.

Commenting on the performance of Pakistan contingent in the recently concluded Asian Games, the president termed it satisfactory when compared with the previous edition held in Doha four years ago.

Praising the hockey squad for their outstanding show to claim the gold medal after two decades, the POA chief reckoned losing to India was the only bad day for the hockey team during the entire competition in Guangzhou.

He also commended the performance of kabaddi and wushu teams, which earned a bronze and silver medal respectively. Meanwhile, he said it was a pity that Pakistan’s handball team was going to defend their title in the upcoming Asian Beach Games but the Pakistan Sports Board had not given them any fund for appropriate training.

“The [handball] federation is trying to prepare the team for the Beach Games on its own,” he said. Arif lamented that a major portion of the PSB funds was being spent on its administrative matters while the remaining was not enough to meet sports expenses.

“Sixty per cent of the budget is being spent on salaries and other expenditures of the PSB and what is left is not that sufficient for sports development,” he remarked, noting the PSB has not held its general body meeting for many years.