LAHORE: The general council of the Pakistan Federation Baseball (PFB) has decided to only give playing rights to its affiliated departments while taking back their right to vote in the federation’s elections.

The crucial decision was taken during the meeting presided over by the PFB president Shaukat Javed here on Tuesday.

“The decision was taken unanimously in the presence of three departmental representatives — Wapda, Police and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) — while Army was absent,” Shaukat said.

It seems that the ongoing power tussle between the government and the Pakistan Olympic Association is the root cause behind this decision.

The PBF president said departmental teams should not have the voting right because most of them were working under the government control, and added that their heads were appointed, not elected.

Shaukat further said that the federation did not accept the two rules of the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) and one of the National Sports Policy 2005, which were giving extraordinary powers to the government to rule over national sports federations.

The two controversial rules of the PSB empower it to impose ad hoc on any sports federation, besides repealing its constitution and removing any office-bearer at any time.

The government is also forcing the sports federations to follow a clause of the National Sports Policy 2005, which restricts the tenure of three main office-bearers (president, secretary and treasurer) to two terms only.

The PFB was working under the IOC charter, which did not allow the government to make any interference in its affairs, Shaukat said.

He dispelled the impression that he had completed two terms of four years each.

He went on to say that he had written a letter to the secretary of the Inter-Provincial Sports Committee to release the PFB annual grant for the year 2012-13, which was suspended as yet.

The general council also approved 2012-13 budget of Rs10 million.

Meanwhile, the PFB activity plan for 2013-14 was also presented at the meeting.

According to the plan, the year will begin with the NBP National Inter-departmental Championship starting at the UCP ground here from Tuesday (today).

The HEC, Police and Wapda have confirmed their participation in the event while Army are not likely to take part because of their differences with the federation over the National Sports Policy 2005.

The women’s National Baseball Championship will be held in Rawalpindi from April 21 to 24 while the men’s National Championship will be staged in the first week of September 2013.

A national training camp will be organised after the National Championship from which the best possible squad will be selected for the eleventh West Asia Cup which will be hosted by Pakistan in October this year.

The first Islamic Women’s Baseball Championship will also be organised in Pakistan — with the collaboration of the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) — in December 2013.

Two U-15 baseball players — Tanvir Abbas and Mohammad Adeel — along with Pakistan coach Musaddiq Hanif will attend coaching courses of Major League in China this year.

The House also decided that any affiliated unit which does not participate in the national championship twice in a row, will have to reapply for PFB affiliation.