LAHORE, Sept 18: The decision to hold the thrice postponed ninth SAF was finalised at the extra-ordinary South Asia Sports Federation (SASF) executive committee  meeting  on Thursday, and the Games will now be held in Islamabad from March 29 to April 7.

Outlining the main points of the meeting, Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) secretary Mohammad Latif Butt, stated that there will be no change in the number of disciplines.

The 15 disciplines are athletics, boxing, badminton,  football, karate,  kabbadi,  taekwondo, swimming, shooting, squash, table tennis, rowing, wrestling, volleyball and weightlifting.

All member countries have been requested to submit their entries for each discipline by the first of week of January, 2004.

He said that there would be no change in the entry once it has been sent.

He pointed out that the chairman ninth SAF Games Lt. Gen. Arif Hassan had shown courtesy and generosity to member countries by announcing that that Pakistan would not raise charges which the participating countries have to pay to the organisers.

“According to the rule, all contingent of visiting countries have to pay USD 24 for each person (athlete or official) per day to the organisers, but Pakistan will charge USD 22, the same charges which were fixed in 2001”, POA secretary said.

“Although the organising committee will suffer a substantial loss the decision has been taken as a goodwill gesture,” he said.

While replying to a question, Latif said that except Pakistan no other country had bid to host the Games.

“All countries backed Pakistan as the host and no country expressed any reservation about the security problem here”, Latif said.

The Indian Olympic Association secretary, Raja Randhir Singh, who is also the secretary of Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) attended the press briefing.

Asked if OCA had played any role so far, Randhir said he as OCA secretary persuaded the SASF countries not to tamper with the rotation of the games and let Pakistan host it.

To a question, Randhir said that hopefully his country would take part in the SAF Games.

“Pakistan is sending its contingent to India for the participation in Afro-Asian Games (Oct 24 to Nov 1) and we are also here and which is a positive indicator of progress”,he said.

Latif while supporting Randhir’s claim added IOC had got signatures of 100 parliamentarians of Lok Sabha on an application requesting its government not to break sporting ties with Pakistan and that was enough to prove how much they were interested for its revival.

Brig Amjad Javed, speaking on behalf of the chairman SAF Games Lt. Gen Arif said that Pakistan did not suffer any loss due to the repeated postponement of the Games in two years.

“In fact, we spent money on importing sports equipment, built new infrastructure and renovated the old and sent the teams on training tours abroad.”

“The equipments and infrastructure are there, the training tour paid off in the shape of our athletes participation in the Commonwealth and Asian Games in 2002, therefore, I don’t see any real loss that Pakistan suffered”, Amjad said.

He assured that Pakistan would hold the best ever games at Islamabad.