ISLAMABAD, Dec 24: The future of badminton players is at stake as two parallel bodies have emerged announcing their elected representatives with both Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) and Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) divided over the matter, thus turning out to be weak sports administrators.

“I can assure you that this body will sincerely look after the game and we are here to develop it,” said the Federal Minister for Food and Agriculture, Nazar Mohammad Gondal, who got elected as the president of the Pakistan Badminton Federation. The elections were held on the premises of the PSB with its senior official Dr Akhtar Ganjera present as an observer.

The other day provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, hailing from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, was also got elected by another body which was looked after by Amir Hayat Khan Rokhri.

A POA representative appeared in the election of Rokhri as an observer.

With Gondal continually decried the role of the 'deserters' and his general council suspended all the officials who broke away from his group.

“They took few players who did not deserve to be part of the national squad at few instances,” Gondal, said in his brief statement to media.

During the meeting, Gondal claimed that he had offered Rokhri's team to initiate a dialogue instead to furthering a controversy but “they never listened to our advices.”

The question which federation is genuine and officially recognised by PSB and POA is unanswered.

“We are just observing the situation and will take all the stakeholders on board before announcing a final decision over the matter,” said a senior official of the POA.

“The situation is not fair for the future of sport and all we want is an amicable solution according to the constitution,” insisted the official.

A sports analyst when approached over the ongoing controversy of parallel bodies added: “The formation of parallel sports bodies indicate the weak sports management and administration of the federal government which is seemingly not interested to resolve dispute and sincerely look after the sports.”

He added that it was time to introduce the model constitution on the Malaysian sports lines which give solid guidelines for running a federation besides ensuring an age limit over the tenure of the officials.