LAHORE: A short-list of three candidates for the post of the Director General Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) is awaiting final approval at the Prime Minister House, Dawn learnt on Wednesday.

The candidates were short-listed after 26 candidates were interviewed for the important post, which is currently lying vacant.

Dawn learnt that the name of a former official of the PSB, Ghaffar Khan is on the top of the list while two other names are Asif Zaman and Taufiq.

A spokesman of the PSB confirmed that the list was sent to the Prime Minister House on Friday and hopefully, the name of one of the candidates would be finalised soon.

The spokesman, however, strongly denied rumours that the Prime Minister House had returned the summary with the advice to show candidate at No.3 place as the top candidate and the PSB complied to the advice “No it is not true at all, the PSB had sent a list of three candidates on Friday after interviewing 26 persons and now it is awaiting approval of the Prime Minister of Pakistan,” the spokesman said.

“There is no pressure from any quarter to bring any change in the list,” the spokesman clarified.

It may be mentioned here that since the start of the cold war between Pakistan Olympic Association with the PSB in 2012, the roles of most of the previous Director Generals were more of political nature rather than abiding by the constitution. It is also one of the reasons that the country’s sports are on constant decline for the last 15 years.

The Pakistan Sports Board officials have also been using issuance of the NOCs to the national sports federations for sending teams abroad as a tool and many officials have availed the trips as joy-riders.

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2021