Sports became a popular subject in the city with the start of the admissions to the intermediate classes in all private and public sector colleges.

Some private colleges are good options for the sportspersons, even offering waiving off the fees of the best athletes. They are also offering exemption of fees to the friends of top-class athletes, just to get a best one to earn medals at the inter-collegiate levels. But ironically some big colleges, despite having good names, are not showing the same gesture for the best athletes as they are charging full fees from them. There must be a policy for all the colleges to exempt those students from all kind of charges, who are best in both curricular and extra-curricular activities.

A monthly stipend should also be given to those students in recognizing their abilities and to further groom them in their respective fields. At the college level it is not difficult for both the private and government sectors to adopt this policy for the better future of the best talent of the country.

The trials will be held in almost all the colleges next week to select the best athletes on the specified quota. Some students, who have never played any sport but they obtained less marks in their matriculation examination will also try to apply for admission on a sports basis. For this purpose, such students might play a sport to get some training before appearing in the trials. This means a good sporting activity will continue in colleges next week.

Sports are getting more importance in the private education sector but more efforts are required to create healthy competitions among the colleges and universities to develop various sports and produce players. Unfortunately, the government sector colleges are lagging behind the private colleges in promoting sports which is a surprising factor. As compared to government’s colleges, private colleges have less sports infrastructure but they show more interest whenever the competitions are held at inter-school, college and university levels.

Around 150 girls are in Lahore to participate in the National Under-19 Women Football Championships. Fourteen teams from across the country are featuring in this big football activity. The matches are being played at different grounds.

The participation of such a good number of teams is encouraging for the women’s football. Besides four provincial teams, the other participating teams are Islamabad, Fata, Gilgit Baltistan, Model Town Club, Karachi Kickers, Young Rising Stars, Rawalpindi, Abbottabad Warriors, Karachi Club, Stars Club, Mirpur Khas and Young Rising Stars Club, Layyah.

The final is scheduled for Aug 12.

The participation of so many teams proves that football is quite popular among women though they could earn little achievement for the country at the international level.

The event will also help the Pakistan Football Federation to pick the best team to represent the country at the SAFF Championship being held in October this year and later in the AFC U-19 event to be held in November.

Forty best players of this event will be picked to get further training before giving a final shape to the national team.

The Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) held its executive committee meeting in Lahore. The meeting was important as there were news in the media that both the Pakistan Sports Board and the POA are at the loggerhead over the number of Pakistan’s contingent for the Asian Games being held in Jakarta, Indonesia from Aug 18.

While the POA had the stance of sending a contingent of 245 members to the Asian gala, the sports board has decided to sponsor a contingent of 140, citing shortage of funds. Later, POA president retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan told the media that there was no change in the number of 245 members’ contingent as he had discussed the matter with the sports board officials over telephone. Things, however, are yet to be cleared.

Interestingly, the PSB has already set up the training camps for a contingent of 245 members but now such news of less number of participation is creating confusion.

Pakistani athletes are not capable to claim a number of medals but even then almost every national sports federation wants to send its team. It is better for both the POA and the sports board to spend more funds on training of the players and then send only those athletes to these competitions who have the chance to at least finish among the top 10.

Later, the POA also awarded a cheque to Pakistan’s weightlifter Nooh Dastgir Butt for earning a gold medal in the Junior World Weightlifting Championship held in Tashkent earlier this month. Muhammad Inam, a wrestler, who won the gold medal at the last Commonwealth Games held in Australia this year, has also been included in the POA Athletes Commission.

Former Pakistan basketball player and now coach of the national basketball team, Sumera Sattar, who is also a lady member of the POA commission, was awarded appreciation letter on her completion of ICECP course held in USA, with a distinction.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2018