Daily Times

LAHORE: Opposition leader in National Assembly Syed Khrushid Shah has called for carrying out the audit of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in order to ascertain how funds of billions of rupees are being spent. “There is dire need to probe funds of the PCB, which is a rich organisation, as resources are being spent on some major cities including Lahore, whereas the PCB is not spending money on development of the game in the far-flung areas of the country,” he said this while talking to the media after inaugurating the Pakistan Women’s Hockey League here on Tuesday at the National Hockey Stadium. He said that if sports and overall environment in the country were on the right track then everything in the country can be put in order. Khurashid stressed the need to keep politics away from sports and cited involvement of politics as the key factor in the overall decline of sports in the country. “It is quite unfortunate that there is deep-rooted involvement of politics in country’s sports due to which our sports are at constant decline,” he said adding: “Funds should be pumped in to make the sports institutions financially viable and to arrest the decline in sports, the way Pakistan People’s Party did when it was in power.”

The opposition leader said every institution should work within its domain as undue interference in the working of an institution results in creating problems which hamper the pace of progress. He said that it was a heartening sign that women hockey was on the rise as regular hockey activities were being held from the platform of the Pakistan Hockey Federation to motivate womenfolk to take up hockey as a sport. “I am very much delighted to see that our country is rich in women hockey talent and with hard work and commitment and training under the watchful eyes of experienced coaches, our women hockey team can emerge as a force to reckon with at the international level,” he said.

Published in Daily Times, February 7^th 2018.