POA abolishes ‘symbolic’ post of its patron

KARACHI: Making amendment in its constitution, Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) on Saturday abolished the symbolic post of its patron as well as patrons of the provincial Olympic associations.

“Yes, it was done in today’s meeting,” a source, who attended the POA general body meeting in Lahore, said.

“The reason is that these posts were symbolic and International Olympic Committee (IOC) will consider it direct government interference,” the source said.

The president of Pakistan used to be the patron of POA, while all governors were serving as patrons of the relevant provincial Olympic associations.

The amendment was endorsed by the POA general body at Pearl Continental Hotel in Lahore with the POA chief Lt Gen (retd) Arif Hasan in the chair.

Meanwhile, Balochistan intends to host the 33rd National Games in April this year.

The source said that Balochistan’s sports secretary informed the house that the venues were ready and they plan to host the Games in April.

However, the Balochistan sports secretary also informed the house that this month in the parliamentary meeting in Quetta, effort will be made to approve the budget for the Games.

According to source, the secretary said that the budget already approved had lapsed and so a fresh approval would be needed.

It was also learnt that Arif Hasan told the secretary that the POA’s venues’ committee wanted to inspect the venues. On this, the secretary told him that once the funds’ issue is resolved, they will inform the NOC and then it could send its venues’ committee.

Holding of National Beach Games was also discussed. It was debated that if National Games are held in April then National Beach Games would have to be moved to September depending on the weather conditions.

Karachi is scheduled to host the National Beach Games.

The house did not consider the request of the Ski Federation of Pakistan (SFP) that its name should be Winter Sports Federation (WSF). SFP was told that there were several events in winter sports and first it should take input from its international federation before filing such a request.

Pakistan Netball Federation (PNF) was told to complete process of its re-affiliation within six months.

It was also told that the PNF chief Mudassir Arain will not be part of the process as he was involved in the money withdrawal case regarding the accounts of Sindh Olympic Association (SOA). It was decided to form a mediation committee to probe the same case.

The SOA has alleged that Mudassir Arain had withdrawn Rs13.1 million from the SOA account when he had formed a parallel SOA few years ago.

It was also decided that school Olympics and traditional sports federations, which will be formed, will have one vote each.

The women harassment issue was also discussed. The house was told that the IOC stresses on gender empowerment.