LAHORE: President of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan has warned the government that Pakistan will not be able to retain its second position at the South Asian Games if it does not change its lackluster attitude towards promotion of sports in the country.

The upcoming edition of the Games will be held in India from Jan 10 to 20, 2016.

Addressing a crowded press conference at a hotel here on Monday, the POA chief said Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were ready to participate in the said games while Pakistan was in shambolic situation and not in a position to even retain its second position, which it had attained three years ago in the last edition of the Games in Dhaka.

Arif, who was addressing the press conference to highlight the decisions taken at the first organising committee meeting of the South Asian Games in New Delhi on July 8, had to criticise government for its step-motherly treatment to sports.

“We wanted immediate commencement of training camps for all participating teams to get better results in India. Players should also be sent to nearby countries to compete and hone their skills,” he demanded.

“The Pakistan Sports Board must end its politically motivated attitude as one of its officials Azam Dar is destroying sports in the country. He is also the main culprit in promoting people who want to form parallel bodies in different national sports federations,” Arif said.

“Had the IPC secretary Ch Ijaz not taken positive steps to avoid total collapse of Pakistan sports, the Pakistan Sports Board would have bulldozed everything,” he asserted.

He also criticised government’s attitude of getting control of sport bodies buildings forcibly.

“The offices of the POA were occupied forcibly, which are still under the control of non-elected persons. Recently, FIFA House was occupied in the same way and now days are not away when the offices of Pakistan Hockey Federation and the Pakistan Weightlifting Federation will also be taken away from elected bodies,” Arif said.

“If the government wants to promote sports in the country it has to show a will for it, otherwise, conflict-like situation will ruin everything,” he said.

He said while the government was not ready to issue annual grant for the national sports federations, its own picked junior volleyball team had toured China in the recent past and no one knew which players were part of it.

He said the government’s main task was to build infrastructure, hold talent development programmes for the players and promote medical sciences in sports to compete the world of sports.

Meanwhile, Arif said 23 disciplines had been approved in New Delhi while five more would also be included after thorough discussions.

The events which have been approved are archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, cricket, cycling, football, golf, handball, hockey, judo, shooting, squash, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling and wushu.

The games which are yet to be approved are baseball, ju-jitsu, kho kho, sepak takraw and triathlon.

He said a total of 80 medals would be at stake during the Games. To a question, Arif said Pakistan would participate at the Games at all costs even if the government would not come forward for help.

He said the country managed to grab the second place despite all government problems in 2012.

Published in Dawn ,July 14th, 2015

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