LAHORE: Pakistan’s Olympic chief isn’t going to bow down to the government’s demand to step down. Instead, retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan is looking forward to the challenge.

With members of the Pakistan Olympic Association general council in attendance during a news conference at a local hotel on Monday, POA president Arif joined them from the United States via a video link and said he won’t be stepping down from his post for those “who didn’t perform their duty of preparing the athletes for the Tokyo Olympics”.

After Pakistan’s failure to win a medal in Tokyo, special assistant to the prime minister Shahbaz Gill, alongside Minister for Inter-provincial Coordination Dr Fehmida Mirza held a news conference 10 days ago where they demanded Arif to resign from the post he’s held since 2004.

“The POA is an autonomous body working under the International Olympic Committee Charter in Pakistan and its general council elects the office-bearers for four-year terms,” the 71-year-old Arif told reporters.

“If anyone has ambitions to become the POA president, they can come and contest the elections.”

Arif reminded that government interference in matters of the POA will incur the wrath of the IOC but said those warnings are always met with calls of “blackmail”.

Taking a jibe at Athletics Federation of Pakistan president retired Maj Gen Akram Sahi, Arif said those “who were defeated twice in the past in POA elections [in 2012 and 2016] are trying to misguide the government”.

The aftermath of the 2012 elections led to formation of two parallel bodies of the POA, one led by Arif and recognised by the IOC, and the other led by Sahi and recognised by the government.

It was only after the government decided to accept the POA of Arif that Pakistan escaped an IOC suspension.

Those events, Arif said, had seen the POA remove the President of Pakistan as the patron of the Olympic committee.

“It was an embarrassment in 2013, that the President was the patron in constitutions of both the parallel POAs,” he said. “The post of the president is highly respectable and such conflicts damage the status of that sacred post.”

Arif lamented that Prime Minister Imran Khan had not invited the POA to explain its position regarding the Olympic performance but said that a request had been made.

“Hopefully it would pave the way to create understanding, which was the need of the time if Pakistan wants to move forward in the right direction,” he said.

Arif once again blamed the Pakistan Sports Board for returning unutilized funds amounting to Rs440million back to the finance ministry in an Olympic year, while also alleging that the IPC ministry also failed to book airline tickets for the Pakistan contingent at the Games.

“Despite repeated requests to the IPC ministry and the PSB, they did not chalk out a comprehensive training programme for the athletes in the last three years,” he said, blaming Pakistan’s failure to win a medal at the fact that “preparing athletes is the PSB’s responsibility”.

Arif, who was elected to a fifth term in 2019, dismissed claims regarding lack of transparency in the POA elections, saying no complaint had been received in the last two years while both he and POA general secretary Khalid Mahmood reiterated that they weren’t bound by law to make public the audited financial statements of the POA public.

“Those statements are shown to each and every member of the general council and we are bound to show them to the IOC to secure further funding,” they said.

Delving into the performance of javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem and weightlifter Talha Talib, who both finished fifth in their respective events at the Tokyo Games, Arif praised the role of Dr. Asad Abbas who was with the contingent as the Covid-19 specialist.

“He made sure that Arshad and Talha were able to compete,” said Arif. “Arshad had pain in his elbow and almost decided to quit while Talha had complaints with his shoulder but Dr Asad helped them out.”

Arif asked Khalid to explain the case of sprinter Najma Parveen, who flopped badly at the Games, and respond to questions that she was in Tokyo with a coach not recommended by the AFP.

“The AFP has been suspended by the POA after three of its athletes returned positive dope tests at the 2019 South Asian Games,” Khalid explained. “Therefore, the cases of track-and-field athletes were dealt through their parent department Wapda and coaches who went with Arshad and Najma were recommended by it.”

Arif added that national federations had limited resources due to lack of sponsorships to prepare athletes. “It is the government which can help in preparing athletes as it has a lot of resources,” he added.

Khalid added that the POA held coaching and administration courses but it could “do only so much with our annual budget which is just Rs50million”.

With Pakistan awarded the right to organise the South Asian Games in 2023, Arif said the friction between the POA and the government would hit the country’s hosting bid.

Before Arif went offline, he received another vote of support from his general council, and also from his senior vice-president Aaqil Shah who concluded the news conference saying the government’s demand had been out rightly rejected.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2021