July 11, 2003	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 10, 1424

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LAHORE, July 10: The participation of Pakistan swimming team in the World Championship scheduled to be held in Barcelona, Spain from Sunday is in doldrums because the Spanish Embassy has not yet issued visas.

Pakistan Swimming Federation (PSF) has announced a three-member team for the event that includes two girls — Rubab Raza and Kiran Khan and a male swimmer Mumtaz (Army). PSF secretary Kamran Butt had been named as manager of the Pakistan squad.

The PSF secretary was still in Islamabad.

However, when contacted Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) secretary Mohammad Latif Butt told Dawn that the POA was in touch with the case and the final result was expected on Friday.

“The Spanish Embassy rang the POA offices on Thursday and advised them to send PSF officials to the Embassy on Friday at 10am”, Latif said.

The POA secretary said that the message had been conveyed to the PSF secretary and hopefully the visas would be issued.

Latif said that POA had also managed to get a NOC from the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB). The World sports governing body FINA had also sent a clearance letter to the Spanish Embassy in Islamabad.

He said that PSF applied visas on July 2 and the Embassy called the PSF official on Wednesday. But the Embassy delayed the matter saying it was trying to get clearance from its government.