LAHORE, Sept 22: The Federal Sports Ministry seized control of country’s richest sports body — the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) — on Monday after making amendments in the constitution.

Sohail Mansoor, PCB’s media director, confirmed to Dawn that a government notification, allowing the Sports Ministry to take control of the PCB, till the next chairman, had been received in the afternoon.

“I can’t read the notification thoroughly because it was received in the offices in the afternoon,” he said.

Asked if the PCB had any objection over the notification, Sohail said since the government had issued it, the PCB had no objection against it.

“Though there is no issue of objection over the notification, we will sit with the Sports Ministry to discuss how to make it workable,” he stated.

“We have to decide some modalities with the Sports Ministry, and we will not seek any legal opinion from our lawyers on this subject since it has been vetted by the Federal Law Ministry,” he added.

When contacted, Secretary of the Sports Ministry Ashraf Khan said the notification was issued after the Law Ministry approved it.

“We amended the PCB constitution to take control over the PCB, since it could not be run properly without its chairman,” Ashraf stated.

“As the PCB constitution is silent over the issue that who will run the board in the absence of its chairman, all the working of the board needs a legal cover, that’s why this step was taken,” he explained.

To a question, the secretary said the Sports and Development Ordnance-1962 allowed the Ministry to make amendment in the constitution of any sports body.

He further said that the Sports Ministry would soon make the announcement to explain how it would work in the PCB to show its presence.

The Sports Ministry, it may be mentioned, had been raising voices over too much PCB expenses, which is spending a huge amount of Rs260 million on the salaries.

The fresh recruitments by the previous chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf, which had raised the number of PCB employees to 700 plus, was another point of criticism by the Sports Ministry.

Since Dr Ashraf had resigned from the PCB as chairman on Aug 18, the patron of the board, President Asif Ali Zardari, has not appointed his predecessor so far, for unknown reasons.

The secretary said the temporary arrangement would continue till the appointment of the next chairman. The new chairman is likely to be appointed soon after the return of the patron on Sept 28 from the US.

In the past, the PCB authorities had been denying that the federal government had any kind of control over it, since it is an autonomous body.

Shamim Haider, the previous sports minister, had also started a campaign to get control over it, when Shaharyar M. Khan was the PCB chief. However, in the presence of a strong patron of the PCB, then president Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf, the Sports Ministry could not dare to occupy the board.