LAHORE: Punjab Sports Minister Rana Mashhood has claimed that the Guinness Book of World Records authorities have rectified the record Pakistan set by making the biggest national human flag at the National Hockey Stadium in the Punjab Youth Festival 2014 here last month.

The minister further asserted that the propaganda against the records was wrong and the Guinness Book official had also issued its statement on its website, admitting the record of making national human flag as correct after accepting the witness of two foreigners. He said the Punjab Sports Board had signed an agreement with the Guinness Book to register all records to be set up in the Youth Festival. The PSB had a plan to set 100 world records in 2014 but so far only 29 were claimed. He said the confirmation of 28 other records would be done soon.The Punjab government has spent billions of rupees on what many see as a futile exercise of setting world records, mainly of not much importance. It has been facing a lot of criticism since the regular national and provincial sport federations and associations are a victim of the governments’ apathy.

Thanks to indifference of the federal government, no athlete from Pakistan could participate in the last Islamic Solidarity Games and now the same fear is lurking around that hardly any athlete will represent the country in the upcoming Asian Games 2014 to be held in South Korea in September this year.

As the government has been supporting a body of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) headed by Akram Sahi, which is not recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), no entry from this group of POA could be entertained from Pakistan for any sports to be held under the IOC Charter the world over.

The government is not ready to recognise the POA body headed by Arif Hasan, which the IOC recognises. But ignoring the interest of the athletes, the federal government is not ready to change its stance.

The Punjab government also is ignoring the provincial sport associations as it invests on projects that have no recognition in the real world of sports.