Special Assistant to Prime Minister Shahbaz Gill and Minister for IPC Dr. Fehmida Mirza have demanded resignation from POA President Lt Gen retired Arif Hassan.
ISLAMABAD: (UrduPoint/Pakistan Point News-August 14th, 2021) The Federal government on Saturday sought resignation from Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) President Lt Gen (r) Arif Hasan over failures in the Tokyo Olympics, a local newspaper claimed on Saturday.
In its report, The news said that Special Assistant to Prime Minister Shahbaz Gill along with Minister for IPC Dr Fehmida Mirza demanded resignation from the POA president, blaming him of all the ills in sports and failures at the Olympic level. It quoted Shahbaz Gill and IPC Minister Dr Fehmida Mirza as saying, “I am sharing with you the decision we have reached today following the meeting with the prime minister. We demand the POA president to resign from the post along with his team so that the Pakistan Sports board (PSB) Election Commission should conduct new elections after settling all the pending issues,”.
Shahbaz Gill said that Lt Gen (r) Arif Hasan was neither a government’s representative nor had the government had any hand in his appointment.
He stated that they had their own process and it was wrong to assume that Arif Hassan was a government representative or that the government had anything to do with his appointment. Dr Fehmida said that Arif had been calling the shots for the last 17 years now.
“What is wrong in sports is because of him and the federations. He has kept on electing himself as the president of the POA and succeeded in managing his elections through officials of his own choice,” she said. She also expressed displeasure over the POA POA decision to remove the name of the president of Pakistan as the Patron of the POA.
“The name of the head of state has been there since 1948. Why the name of the head of the state has been removed in 2019. There was no obligation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) then why the name has been removed,” she questioned.
She went out to say that a sports policy would soon get cabinet approval and it would be tabled before the cabinet soon.
Fehmida said that they had already circulated the policy with the federations and now it would be tabled before the federal cabinet.”
She asked as to why no new sports policy was formulated after devolving powers to the provinces. “Election Commission and Dispute Resolution Commission would be set up soon, ”.
She stated that it would the government that would hold elections of sports federations through the PSB nominated election commission. This commission, she stated, wouldl be headed by a retired judge. She also criticized POA Secretary Mohammad Khalid Mehmood, saying that he did not have any representation. “His boxing federation is not being recognized by the international body. We will recognize only those federations which would have international backing.”
