Daily Times

KARACHI: After remaining at the loggerheads with the Islamabad-based Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) on the two-term clause of the national sports policy since its inception, the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) has now advised the national sports federations to ‘accept’ it. The advice came from none other than the POA secretary general Muhammad Khalid Mahmood during the general council meeting of the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) held at Karachi’s KPT Sports Complex on December 14. Attending the meeting in his capacity as president of the Punjab Boxing Association, he suggested that the PBF should adopt government’s sports policy 2005 and the ‘house’ accordingly approve its adoption.

This is, perhaps, for the first time that a top official of the POA has come forward to suggest accepting of the policy that has remained point of contention between the two warring bodies. Contrary to the instructions, the sports federations have derived a formula by making amendments in their constitutions and creating post of a chairman with almost similar powers to stretch their run unabated instead of making room for others. It is in the same line that the PBF has also amended its constitution by creating a post of chairman and in all probability the incumbent president Doda Khan Bhutto will be elevated. The quadrennial PBF elections are slated to take place in Peshawar on January 26. Till to date, national federations are divided on adopting the two-term clause. However, the POA office-bearers do not come under the sports policy. According to the POA constitution of 2011, it is registered under Societies registration Act XXI of 1860 on June 25, 1957. The POA comes under the umbrella of International Olympic Committee (IOC) whose charter bars government interference. It is pertinent to mention that Pakistan sports hit rock bottom particularly from 2012 to 2016 due to government’s escalation of tempo as it was bent upon to implement its writ. The government also used force and took control of the Lahore based office of the POA. Pakistan even survived scare of getting suspension from the IOC following a warning due to alleged government’s interference with the latter realising that they were on the wrong foot.