ISLAMABAD, Jan 8: The 28th executive committee meeting of the South Asian Sports Federation (SASF) being held in Rawalpindi Thursday will formally welcome Afghanistan into its fold.

With the addition of Afghanistan, the number of the participating countries in the March 29-April 7 SAF Games has grown from seven to eight.

The meeting to be chaired by the Pakistani president of SASF, Syed Wajid Ali Shah will also review progress made for the Games besides approving the minutes of the last meeting.

Meanwhile delegates from Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Bangladesh and Afghanistan have arrived in town while those from India and Sri Lanka were expected here in the wee hours of Thursday.

The Indian delegation is led by Suresh Kalmadi, the president of their National Olympic Committee while the Sri Lankan party is headed by Hemesiri Fernando.

The officials here for the meeting are: Yonten Tharchen (Bhutan), Muhammad Zahir Naseer (Maldives), Hemesiri Fernando, Sunil Jayaweera, Milton Amerasinghe, Reza Latiff (Sri Lanka), Suresh Kalmadi, Raja Randhir Singh, Braham Swarup Ojha, Aslam Khan (India), Rukma Shumsher, Binod Shankar Palikhe, Janardan Sharma Paudel (Nepal), Mr & Mrs Ashraf Uddin Ahmed, Mrs Naghma Mahmood (Bangladesh), Syed Wajid Ali Shah, Syed Shahid Ali, Muhammad Latif Butt, Khawaja Saeed Farooq, Abdul Khaliq Khan, Sarfraz Ahmed, Syed Aqil Shah (Pakistan), Syed Muhammad Zia Dashti, Abdul Saboor Azizi, Abdul Nasir Motaki (Afghanistan).