LAHORE, July 14: Pakistan Volleyball Federation (PVF) general council has created new posts to accommodate some officials through constitutional amendments to meet the requirements of the national sports policy.

National sports policy was announced in 2001 and it refrains any official from retaining the offices of president, secretary or treasurer of a sport body for more than two terms of four years each.

According to the changes, Chaudhary Muhammad Yaqoob who has served as president for three terms has been elevated to chairman of the federation through the amendments.

Mahabat Khan from NWFP has been elected as president while his post as senior vice president, has been taken by Allama Ghulam Hassan who was acting as treasurer. M.B Javed has replaced Allama as new treasurer.

Later addressing at press conference, Yaqoob said that he and Ghulam resigned from their posts. But the general council members again elected them on new posts after making constitutional amendments.

Asked whether it was a step to fulfil the requirement of the national sports policy, Yaqoob said ‘It will meet the demand of the policy”.

Yaqoob denied that he was approached by the government to adopt the national sports policy, or that the federation made the changes to have its annual grants restored by the government which has stopped the funding of 15 national sports federation for not adopting the sports policy.

Yaqoob was hopeful that now PVF would have good relations with the government as it was necessary to promote the game.

Outlining the general activity programme of the Federation

The chairman explained that the first activity is the participation in the 12th Asian senior championship to be held in Tainging, China from Sept 4 to 12. Sixteen teams would take part in the contest, which was to be held originally in Pakistan.

Yaqoob said that the Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) had taken back the competition from Pakistan due to reservations of different countries over the security aspect.