IPC ministry attempts to bring POA under PSB’s umbrella

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) and Ministry for Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) have started spreading their wings in an effort to bring Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) under their umbrella and to help out those officials, who were rejected time and again by the democratically elected House.

In a latest move, a hand-picked PSB’s inquiry committee supported by the ministry has proposed ban on the officials of Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) for their alleged ‘human trafficking’ in the wake of Games medalist Zohaib Rasheed’s failure to return home after competing in the Olympic Qualifying round in Italy.

The hand-picked PSB body failed to differentiate between ‘human trafficking’ and a selected athlete participating in international events. Zohaib who was carrying NOC from Pakistan Navy and was holding blue passport was the most promising boxer. He exhibited his talent by winning the medal at the Games and had all the right to train and compete in international event. Once a player or an athlete carries an NOC from Armed Forces, the federation cannot deny his/her access to the international competitions.

Yet, in a surprising move the PSB committee recommended ban for the federation’s officials instead of taking action against the department. Recently, the Athletics Federation of Pakistan’s (AFP) manager deprived an athlete of his genuine right to compete in an international event despite his presence at the venue. Yet no action was taken against the federation. Three athletes of the same federation were tested positive for dope test during the last South Asian Games, yet no action was taken against the athletics federation. On many other occasions such situation emerged, however both PSB and ministry remained silent spectators. With the POA elections approaching fast, the ministry/PSB started playing politics with the main objective to help out the rejected and defeated officials occupy offices in the POA by hook or crook.

Such an effort backfired in 2012 with the IOC coming strong to force the ministry to submit a written apology for not intervening in POA/federations’ matters from there on. Now the ministry again started sowing the seeds that would prove counter-productive and further cripple the system.

There is one more important element involved in this inquiry. The PSB Board has recently changed the rules of tackling federations discipline matters months after Zohaib’s incident, thus the particular incident occurred before finalizing new rules does not come inside its purview. The boxing federation has already finalised the inquiry on the incident so no two inquiries could be conducted one after another. When ‘The News’ approached PBF Secretary General Col (r) Nasir Tung, he said that Zohaib Rasheed was the most deserving boxer which he proved time and again.

“NOC was issued to Zohaib by his department (Navy) to participate in the Olympic qualifying round. Rasheed traveled on a blue passport but after facing financial difficulties decided not to return home immediately after the event which he admitted during the media talk.” The PBF official added that PSB did not provide any funding for the training or participation of national boxers in the Olympic qualifying round.

“Why the PSB did not provide adequate financial support to the athletes who represented the country.” The PBF dismissed such findings that are not based on the facts but are mere fabricated. Despite many efforts, IPC Secretary Nadeem Irshad Kayani was not available for comments.