PM urged to announce special package for players and coaches

LAHORE: President of Pakistan Federation Baseball (PFB) Syed Fakhar Ali Shah has demanded of Prime Minister Imran Khan to announce a special package for players and coaches including baseball to deal with the situation during and after the Corona virus pandemic in Asia.

He said that at present the whole world is under the influence of Corona and all activities are suspended which will undoubtedly affect the performance of the players in the near future and the position built after years of hard work will go backwards. Athletes, especially those who show strength, suffer from shortages or unavailability of certain required food and equipment, and all the players and coaches except the players in the department cannot afford it and only when we are able to compete in Asia then they will be able to qualify for the World Cup and Pakistan will save its ranking.

He said huge sums of money will be required immediately to achieve this goal during and after the Corona and we demand from Imran Khan that in this emergency, as in the case of other sectors various funds be expedited, also approve rehabilitation packages for the welfare of the players and sports and announce a special package as after this situation there will be a lot of pending events. Therefore, the government should set up extra camps and arrange food and accommodation for the athletes so that we can not only participate in the Asian competitions but also save our ranking for the world competitions.

He further said that our players belong to less than average families and are award winners at Asian level, so special scholarships and educational expenses may be arranged for others also who are of the same standard otherwise there will be huge losses for the sports of Pakistan.

According to Syed Fakhar Shah, the way Imran Khan is fearlessly fighting Corona is showing the best immunity in him and we want every single person in the country to participate in sports and other healthy activities and Opportunities will have to be given which will now need to be tackled urgently and we will be able to avoid other corona-like epidemics besides sports like the example of Germany where we have more than 1.5 million people infected with corona. However, due to their excellent diet and strong immune system, only 5% of deaths occurred.