16-Jul-2013
The NEWS
KARACHI: An important meeting of IOC-recognized POA’s general council is going to be held on August 3 in Lahore, which will review the situation created by the recent elections and the National Games organized by the interim committee in Islamabad, ‘The News’ has learnt Wednesday.
The meeting will discuss how the country can avoid a ban by the IOC.
Sources said that since the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) officials forced Rana Mujahid not to take part in the elections, the situation of national sports has been further complicated.
Those groups who were against the genuine POA were divided at the last moment when their own stalwart Olympian Rana Mujahid, who was running for the post of secretary, withdrew his nomination papers hours before the polls, alleging that the elections were nothing but a fraud. He declared that the voters’ list was a total fraud, therefore, the entire elections were unlawful and that “forced me to quit the elections”.
The POA officials applauded the role of PHF bosses that at the last moment they took the wise step in the interest of the Olympic movement in Pakistan or the consequence would have been disastrous.
POA’s director general Khalid Mehmood when contacted told this scribe that the association appreciated the move of the PHF high-ups to remain out of the “unconstitutional and illegal POA interim committee election. It was a wise decision of hockey management in the interest of Olympic movement in the country and exposes what is the truth and what is happening in our sports,” he said.
Khalid said that the POA is making a lot of efforts to save the country from sanctions, which would be a disaster for a country like Pakistan, already isolated because of foreign teams’ reluctance to visit.
He said that the fake POA interim committee elections were exposed because those who cast votes had nothing to do with sports.
He added that POA would discuss some important issues of Pakistani sports in the general council meeting.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Swimming Federation (PSF) president Majid Waseem wrote in a communiqué to secretary IPC that the two persons who cast their votes on behalf of the PSF in “the fake elections” did not hold any position in PSF.
He said one of the two was a lady who had cast her vote in POA’s 4th February 2012 elections as a representative of the Pakistan Athletics Federation. “Now in the interim committee election she cast her vote from Pakistan Swimming Federation.”
He said that all sports federations for whom fake representatives cast votes in the interim committee election have filed complaints with the authorities. |
