Courtesy: DAWN.com

PSB unwilling to sponsor Asian Indoor Games contingent

By Imran Ali Teepu

Thursday, 20 Aug, 2009

Pakistan’s turbulent sports spectrum witnessed another setback when the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) refused to sponsor a 98-member contingent for the upcoming Asian Indoor Games, Dawn learnt on Wednesday.

The third annual Asian Indoor Games (AIG) are scheduled to be held in Vietnam from October 30 this year.

'There is a complete financial and administrative mess in the PSB and the ongoing financial crunch has forced the board to say ‘no’ to the Pakistan Olympic Association [POA] for sponsoring a contingent of 98 members,' sources close to the development told Dawn.

Pakistani athletes were scheduled to appear in athletics, swimming, boxing, wushu, indoor kabaddi, gymnastics, chess, futsal (indoor football), basketball, billiards and snooker and a non-affiliated sport ju-jutsu.

'The board has informed the POA that the PSB will extend all kinds of help in arranging a No-Objection-Certificate [NOC] for the players while the funds must be generated by the country’s Olympics body,' the sources said.

They also pointed out: 'The board has already wasted Rs6.5 million from the 11th South Asian Games budget and PSB youth training programme on the medal-less 1st Asian Martial Arts Games held at Bangkok, Thailand, from April 25 to May 3, this year.'

The PSB, sources said, had started drifting away from its charter under which it was supposed to promote and regulate the sports.

The PSB as per the 1962 Sports (Development and Control) Ordinance, has been awarded a mandate to develop uniform standards of competition in sports in Pakistan that are comparable to the standards prevailing internationally, and also regulating and controlling sports on a national basis for over 40 different Olympic sports.

The sources asserted that the board’s affairs were in limbo as the top management had completely failed to tackle the administrative and financial affairs while the PSB was also failing to properly manage the country’s sports affairs.

'PSB’s financial condition is so miserable that their employees are getting salaries after a four to five-day delay,' the sources said.

However, when approached over the sponsorship row of the 3rd Indoor Asian Games, an official of the PSB said: 'There is no refusal from our side. But we have asked the POA to explore the possibility of generating funds for the 3rd Indoor Asian Games.'

About the board’s limp administrative and financial affairs, the official said: 'We have a very good financial system in place. The Rs6.5 million funds for the 1st Asian Martial Arts Games were re-appropriated by the competent authority [Sports Ministry] and all the training camps for the 11th SAF Games will be in place after Ramazan. Meanwhile, some training camps for different sports are in progress already.'








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