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Thursday March 28, 2024

Pak contingent for Asian Games: POA expects PSB to bear 245 members’ expenses

By Our Correspondent
July 31, 2018

KARACHI: Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) is hopeful that Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) will sponsor a 245-member contingent for the 18th Asian Games, slated to be held in the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang from August 18 to September 2.

“I had told you that we had talked to the PSB officials a few days ago. We talked to them today again and they said that they were considering sponsoring the 245-member contingent whose list we have given to them,” a POA official told ‘The News’.

He made it clear that board and lodging fee would be deposited by the Board with the organisers in a couple of days.The POA has not yet received any response in writing from the Board.

It is pertinent to mention here that early this month the Board had committed to support a 300-member contingent but later it took a U-turn, asking the POA through a letter to tell national federations to reduce their strength by up to fifty percent.

In a meeting at Lahore the federations dropped some players and officials that they had picked. In that meeting held at the Olympic House the POA decided that no discipline would be omitted.

A PSB official told this correspondent the other day that the Board was not able to back more than 140 members of the contingent.

In the Asiad, Pakistan is also featuring in some of those disciplines whose federations are not affiliated with the POA and the PSB. These federations will bear their expenses themselves.

Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) has decided to send an 11-member contingent to Indonesia for the Asiad.The PBF will sponsor one boxer and one official. The rest will be backed by the PSB.

The six male and two female boxers will be accompanied by three officials.The POA Executive Committee will meet in Lahore on Tuesday (today) to discuss important matters relating to Pakistan’s participation in international events. The committee is expected to approve a panel of arbitrators in the meeting which will be chaired by the POA chief Lt Gen (retd) Arif Hasan.