LAHORE, May 24: The Pakistan Sports Board’s (PSB) continuous defiance of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) charter and its blatant backing of the hand-picked Interim Committee of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) by agreeing to hand it a lucrative amount of Rs80 million for organising the National Games next month has brought the country on verge of suspension from the Olympic family.
It is no secret that the IOC does not tolerate any government interference in working of its member country as is evident from the recent attempts by the Indian government to dictate terms to IOC which resulted in the country’s suspension. Left with no choice, the Indian government has once again placed a request with the IOC to lift their ban and has assured the world Olympic body of adhering to the IOC charter.
The PSB, however, seems hell bent on inviting the IOC wrath by defying the orders and directives of the only recognized body in the country – the Arif Hasan-led Pakistan Olympic Association.
The PSB, in fact has infuriated the IOC further by forming an interim committee of POA headed by Asif Bajwa with Rana Mujahid as secretary and has backed it to run the sports affairs and organize tournaments.
The critics and experts feel that such defiant attitude on the PSB’s part would soon compel the IOC to suspend the Olympic membership of Pakistan which coud be disastrous for the country’s sporting future.
Quite recently, in yet another move to snub the IOC authority, director general of the PSB Amir Hamza Gillani announced that another edition of the National Games will be held in Islamabad in June this year with the collaboration of the interim committee and for that purpose, a staggering amount of Rs80 million will be dished out to the body.
It is, indeed, an outrageous amount of money for organizing a national level event, the 32nd edition of which was held just five months ago in Lahore for a cost of just Rs 10.75 million. The Games were organized by Punjab Olympic Association (PbOA).
The recent PSB move clearly smacks of foul play and the huge amount sanctioned for the National Games is likely to be distributed among the ‘favourites’ without any proper accountability of its usage ever coming to light.
In the 32nd National Games, the PbOA had also paid daily allowance and provided tracksuits and other equipments to its athletes from its own resources since the provincial government did not extend any help to it for the Games.
Moreover, daily allowance was also paid to the Balochistan Olympic Association contingent as their government had also refused to pay it.
The PbOA had also paid rent of some of the venues besides bearing the expenditures of boarding and lodging of all the contingents taking part.
Except the Services (Army, PAF, Navy) all the affiliated units of the POA like Wapda, Railways, Higher Education Commission, four provinces, Fata and Islamabad had taken part in the 32nd National Games.
The big question that arises here is who really stands to benefit from the whopping amount of Rs 80million sanctioned for the National Games by the PSB?