Sports committee takes POA to task

ISLAMABAD: Federal Coordination Committee of Sports, headed by Federal Minister of Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC) Dr Fehmida Mirza, on Monday came down hard on the Pakistan Olympic Association for the poor performance of national athletes in the Tokyo Games and reiterated its demand for the incumbent POA president’s resignation.

“All the participants expressed concern over Pakistan’s performance in the recent Olympics and said that the POA has failed to perform its duties. The main reason for the decline in the Olympics and the dismal position is POA president retired Lt General Arif Hasan and secretary Khalid Mahmood, all the representatives at the meeting stressed that the POA president should resign for the betterment of sports,” read a press release issued after the meeting.

The fifth meeting of the committee was attended by members including sports representatives from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and Punjab. IPC Federal Secretary Mohsin Mushtaq and DG PSB retired Colonel Asif Zaman were also present at the meeting.

The press release further stated that the IPC minster said that there is no structure of sports governance in the country.

“It is very important to have a policy for its improvement and a new policy is being given for merit as there is a need for sports structure in the country,” it quoted her saying.

She said that the government is introducing a new National Sports Policy for the betterment of sports ‘very soon’ and opinion of all stakeholders is being incorporated in this regard. It was also agreed in the meeting that POA is not playing its role and an opaquely-elected president and secretary general have been a loss for Pakistan’s sports for the last several years, in this regard an ad hoc committee should be formed.

Representatives of the provinces remarked that they are eagerly waiting for the sports policy which would help in development of players throughout the country.