LAHORE: Retired Major Gen­eral Akram Sahi has stepped down as the chairman of the Athletics Federation of Pakis­tan (AFP) without giving any reason in his resignation letter addressed to the president and the secretary of the body.

In his resignation letter dated February 27, Sahi wrote: “Thro­ugh this letter, I tender my resignation from the post of the Chair­man of Athletics Fed­er­ation of Pakistan. I convey my sincere wishes for a bright fut­ure of AFP that I served for more than a decade with integrity, dedication and professionalism.

“I will cherish the victory moments brought to the nation as team leader. I extend my sincerest gratitude to all the esteemed members of athletics’ family for their cooperation, dedication and support.”

Sahi was first elected as the president of AFP in 2011-12 for a midterm of two years, and he held a full four-year charge from 2014.

His final tenure in the position started last year before he changed his post from president to chairman to avoid any clash with the national sports policy which binds the top office-bearers of a federation to not extend their tenures for more than two four-year terms.

During his tenure, four Pakistani athletes failed dope tests during the 2019 South Asian Games in Nepal and during the National Athletics Championship last year. The incidents raised questions over the competence of the then leadership of the AFP.

Moreover, the failure of Pakistan’s top javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem’s to make it to last year’s also came under Sahi’s oversight.

The AFP came under fire recently when Pakistani athletes Shajar Abbas and Jaffar Ashraf missed out on participating in the Asian Indoor Athletics Championship in Tehran last month due to a technical fault that had occurred following an official’s mistake.

It may be mentioned that in the first quarter of this year, three retired Army officers, who were running as heads of the hockey (Khalid Sajjad Kho­khar) and athletics (Sahi) federations and the Pakistan Olym­pic Association (Arif Hasan) resigned from their posts.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2024