ISLAMABAD, July 12: Raising a pool of well-qualified coaches and grooming of Pakistani technical officials were identified as areas of priority when President Pakistan Olympic Association, Lt. Gen. Syed Arif Hasan, met the first batch of sports federations’ officials on Monday.

The officials of athletics, swimming, rifle shooting and golf federations separately presented evaluation of their performance to the POA chief.

The second batch of federations’s representatives — kabaddi, handball, football, volleyball, rowing and gymnastics — will meet POA chief on Wednesday to submit and discuss their evaluation reports. A third group of sports federations, affiliated with POA, will put forth their reports on July 16.

Helping in evaluating the federations’ performance in Monday’s meeting were the POA’s aqcting secretary general, Abdul Khaliq Khan, associate secretary, Lt. Col. (r) Muhammad Yahya, and director general of Pakistan Sports Board, Brig. Arif Mehmud Siddiqui.

A president, vice-president or secretary of the federations made their presentations to the POA chief, that were thoroughly discussed, leading to tangible conclusions about coaches and technical officials.

“The discussions led to two main conclusions — about raising a pool of coaches and further grooming Pakistan technical officials in various disciplines,”said POA chief.

Furthermore, he said, the meetings with federation officials also decided to raise representation of women to 20 percent in each sports body.

It was also decided to have a marketing wing in the newly- established Pakistan Sports Trust. “Federations will meet their own expenses but whenever there will be need for more finances, PST marketing wing will help them,” he added.

He said the federations whose performance required improvement would be intimated of their weaknesses and asked to redress the same.—APP