KARACHI: Neither the IPC ministry nor the Task force established by PM Imran Khan on sports affairs has taken any significant decision about how to improve the country’s sports.
The National Games have not been held for past four years. Besides, there are around a dozen parallel federations and associations in various sports. Because of these and some other problems Pakistan failed to perform well at the recent Asian Games. Pakistan stood 34th among the 37 countries that took part in the games.
Due to the inaction of the Task Force, sports organisers believe that Ehsan Mani, who heads the body, is not much interested in other sports or that he is preoccupied with running the PCB of which he is the chairman.
Sportsmen and sportswomen who have suffered owing to the existence of parallel bodies are keenly waiting for the ministry of IPC and the Task Force to take decisions and implement them.
Former KCCA joint secretary and KMC’s deputy director sports Jameel Ahmed says the Task Force should call those sports organisers who have devoted their lives to promotion of sports and have produced a number of successful athletes in various disciplines.
Jameel said that Muhammad Talib of athletics, Muhammad Sibtain of table tennis, Saeed Hai of tennis, Ali Akbar Shah and Arif Abbasi, a close friend of Mani, should be consulted for rectifying the system as they have produced super stars for Pakistan despite resource constraints.
He said that genuine sports organisers had been sidelined because of “the cancer of parallel bodies, lack of competitions at grassroots level and disregard of merit” in selection. He said Mani knew the affairs of cricket at international level, but the sports affairs of Pakistan were quite different.
Jameel, who organised two City Games and hundreds of other sports events, said the Task Force head would have to talk to people who worked at the grassroots level to understand the issues of Pakistani sports and how to address them.When ‘The News’ talked to Mani on Tuesday, he said that he was determined to work for the promotion of all sports in the country as directed by the PM.
