LAHORE: Retired Lt Gen Syed Arif Hasan, the long-serving president of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA), has resigned from his post, just ten months before the completion of his fourth tenure, citing health problems.

Talking to Dawn from the United States on Saturday, Gen Arif confirmed that he had tendered the resignation, due to his health problems and to spend time with the family.

“I have no regrets as I fully guarded the International Olympic Committee Charter, which was my main duty as the head of the POA,” the 73-year-old Arif said.

“Under my presidency our athletes and educationists earned several scholarships from the IOC, besides getting a good number of IOC Solidarity Courses for different federations.

“In the last Asian Games [Hangzhou 2022] and Olympics [Tokyo 2021], the POA also supported many athletes by providing them with funds to ensure their participation in those games.

He continued, “The POA headquarters in Lahore has been fully renovated.”

It may be mentioned here that according to the POA constitution, preparing athletes for international contests is not the responsibility of the POA as it is an institution which can assure Pakistan athletes’ participation in international competitions such as Olympics, Asian, Commonwealth and SAF Games.

According to the details, Gen Arif in a letter written to the POA Executive Committee said though the decision to resign was not easy, his health issues forced him to do so.

Gen Arif was first elected POA president back in March 2004, in place of Syed Wajid Ali Shah — another long-serving chief of the national Olympic association.

Arif then was a serving three-star Army general, under whose administration Pakistan hosted the 2004 South Asian Games in Islamabad.

Soon after the Games, his name surfaced as a candidate for the post of POA president. However, the POA was not ready to accept Arif — a government-nominated candidate — as Wajid wanted his son Syed Shahid Ali Khan to replace him.

An ageing Wajid, who had been hospitalised, could not resist the government much and eventually Arif was elected POA president.

As a serving general, Arif generated a lot of funds for sports but after the retirement it was not an easy task for him to raise funds.

When Arif was elected, the main aim of the government was focused on implementing its controversial national sports policy, which restricted president, secretary and treasurer of all national sports federations and those of the POA to two terms in office.

However, neither the POA nor the federations agreed with that clause, while terming it government’s interference which could result in an IOC ban on Pakistan.

As a nominee of the government, it was expected that Arif would succeed in implementing that clause of the national sports policy, but it did not happen as he himself managed to get elected as POA president four times.

But since 2012, he’s faced numerous challenges to hold onto the hotseat with retired Maj Gen Akram Sahi being his biggest rival.

In the election that year, Sahi contested against Arifwith full support from the government, only to lose.

Since then, Arif had been fighting against the government, which was adamant over the implementation of the two-term clause, which had brought the country at the brink of suspension by the IOC as a member country in 2014-15.

Only then, the POA was accepted as an independent entity but the cold war between the POA and the Pakistan Sports Board continued. The weak link between the two bodies would now have to be strengthened by whoever replaces Arif as the POA chief.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2023