Daily Times

LAHORE: The Sports Commission of Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) has decided that the competitions of judo, squash, cycling and football will be held under the banner of the POA in the 33rd National Games slated to be held in Quetta from October 7-14 this year. “In order to safeguard the rights of the athletes we have decided that the players of squash, judo, cycling and football will feature in the National Games under the POA banner,” POA secretary general Muhammad Khalid Mahmood said Friday after the Sports Commission meeting in Islamabad on Thursday. “The POA had asked the Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF) and the Pakistan Cycling Federation (PCF) to withdraw the cases they had filed against the POA. And the two federations have not yet done that,” added Khalid. “The Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) was asked to take action against its senior vice-president Qamar Zaman as he is associated with a parallel Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Olympic association. But the PSF did not take any action against the former world champion yet.

As football is embroiled in legal wrangling so the Sports Commission has decided that if there is not any specific decision from the court by August 7, both men and women football events will be conducted in the National Games under POA’s banner.” Khalid said that special committees would be constituted for conducting the competitions in these four disciplines.

The Lahore High Court (LHC) heard the football case on Thursday following the Pakistan Football Federation’s (PFF) request for early hearing and August 7 has been fixed as the next date. Khalid also revealed that handball had been cleared as Pakistan Handball Federation (PHF) had suspended its senior official Bahre Karam for two years for having association with a provincial body affiliated with the parallel KP Olympic Association.

Khalid, who is also the secretary of the Sports Commission, also said that baseball (women) and rugby (women) were also included in the National Games. “We have included women’s baseball the grounds that Pakistan women’s baseball team has qualified for the Asian Baseball Cup which also serves as qualifiers for the World Championship. So featuring in the National Games will provide them practice ahead of their national duty,” Khalid maintained. “Women’s rugby had been excluded on the ground that they did not hold any National Championship. But the Sorts Commission has now been provided with the documents of the national championship and so the discipline has been included,” Khalid said.

He said that Balochistan Director Sports had informed that the venues for the National Games had not been prepared yet. Khalid said that the Sports Commission would meet again next week to finalise the events of the National Games. “It was a long meeting and so we decided to meet again in four to five days to finalise the events,” the official said. To a query, Khalid said the PJF had been asked for a table talk. “It would be appropriate to have a debate on the differences which would help to resolve the dispute,” he added. POA’s senior vice-president Syed Aqil Shah chaired the commission meeting which was also attended by Col Junaid Alam, who is also president of Pakistan Judo Federation (PJF).

Published in Daily Times, July 30^th , 2017.