LAHORE: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) president Akhtar Rasool on Monday vowed that national team would take part in this year’s Asian Games.

Talking to Dawn, the former Olympian said: “At this moment, I can say we will go to defend our title at the Asian Games.”

The team’s participation at the Games, scheduled to be held in the South Korean city of Incheon in September-October, is in doubt after no official of the PHF attended the meeting of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) on Saturday which finalised the Pakistan contingent for the Games.

PHF’s absence raised doubts whether it is interested in sending the team with the POA having set the deadline of Saturday, April 26 to finalise the contingent.

The PHF is set to hold trials to select the squad for the Asiad and Dawn has learnt that the POA could seek an extension to finalise the team from the organisers.

The decision to participate in the Asian Games has been taken after considerable delay by the PHF.

Despite having received the green light from the Inter-provincial ministry last Friday to take part in the event, the federation did not attend the meeting of the Arif Hasan-led POA to finalise the Pakistan contingent.

Arif, when contacted on Monday, told Dawn that he hadn’t “received any call from the PHF” while adding the deadline for submitting the final contingent was April 30 and “after that it would be difficult to get it”.

The ministry had also delayed the permission as it took a u-turn from its earlier policy of not recognising the Arif-led body for two years. Instead, against the instruction of the International Olympic Association (IOC), it had formed a parallel POA body headed by Akram Sahi.

The ministry, though, has now not only allowed the PHF and other national federations to contact Arif’s IOC-recognised POA for participation in the Asian Games but has also warned Akram’s body in a letter not to hold any meeting at the POA’s Olympic House.

However, Akram’s body held a meeting on Saturday also having the agenda of finalising the Asian Games contingent.

Khwaja Farooq Saeed, the secretary of that group, however denied having received any such letter from the ministry despite Dawn having obtained a copy of that letter.

The ministry had earlier helped Akram’s group get hold of the Olympic House in Lahore from Arif’s body besides having also seized the bank accounts of the original POA, which are still non-operational.

The IOC has also warned the government of Pakistan of giving back the Olympic House and releasing the accounts of its recognised POA whilst also deciding to ban Pakistan in July for government interference in the local Olympic body.

But with the ministry having changed their stance, Pakistan could avoid the ban and a decision in that regard will be taken when the ministry, Arif Hasan and IOC’s representative in Pakistan hold a meeting in Lausanne on May 21.

In another development, a private television channel quoted inter-provincial minister Riaz Hussain Pirzada on Monday that the government would follow the IOC Charter and it would also recognise Arif’s POA.

Pirzada had earlier said after a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Sports earlier this month that if he had the power, he would have “handcuffed Arif Hasan” while having also underestimated the IOC warning about the ban, claiming “it could not last more than six months”.