Delay in camps to hurt Pakistan’s medal chances at SAG: Ganjera

KARACHI: Former Director General of Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) Dr Akhtar Nawaz Ganjera on Saturday said that camps for the 13th South Asian Games should have started well in advance, adding, the so much delay in starting preparation could affect the country’s medals prospects.

“I think it is too late. The camp should have started well in advance. There should have been a couple of years’ preparation for such a regional event. The delay in holding camps will bring Pakistan’s medals chances down,” Akhtar told ‘The News’ in an interview.

The 13th South Asian Games are slated to be held in Nepal’s cities of Kathmandu and Pokhara from December 1-10.

Akhtar said that SAG had a bigger face also, saying, it is also a subject of foreign affairs and helps bring nations together.

“South Asian Games are very important as the event helps in bringing the SAARC nations closer and creates regional harmony,” said Akhtar, who retired as DG PSB last year.

Akhtar said that annual grants of the federations should not be stopped.

“If the government stops funding federations it will lose its grip on them. I will give you an example, in the 1981 Moscow Olympics, there were Russian and American blocs. Pakistan was in American bloc which staged a boycott. Pakistan hockey had the ability to win gold in those Olympics but it did not feature and wasted the big opportunity. Australian government also wanted its federations not to feature in those Games but the federations did not obey the government and rather went on to take part in those Olympics and won medals,” Akhtar said.

“The basic reason behind not obeying the state order from the Australian federations was that the state was not funding federations. And it was after that incident that Australia Institute of Sports was formed and the state came closer to the federations. In Pakistan too we have Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) which is not in control of the state. So I am not in favour of withdrawing annual grants of the federations,” Akhtar said.

However, he was quick to add that there should be criteria for annual grants, depending on the strength and capability of the sports discipline concerned.

He added that federations could not run sports effectively without state input.

To a query that an effort is being made to hold the 14th South Asian Games in Pakistan — in Punjab’s different cities besides Islamabad — Akhtar said it was a ‘good idea’.

“It is a good idea as it will involve more crowd. But it will not only create administrative issues but the concept of a village and its festive nature will also be affected. Personally, I am in favour of holding such Games at a single place. Pakistan Sports Complex in Islamabad is an ideal place for these Games if we add some more facilities to it as we have already hosted SAG there twice,” he said.

Pakistan will host the 14th South Asian Games either in 2021 or 2022 and a meeting of Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) has also been held in this connection.

It is expected that another meeting will be held soon to form committees so that things could be streamlined. Pakistan has previously hosted the event in 1989 and 2004.