LAHORE - The Pakistan Cricket Board has appointed former captain Wasim Bari as new chief operating officer. The appointment of 61-year-old Bari, currently director of human resources, comes after Altaf was sacked earlier this month, apparently because of differences with Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ijaz Butt. The Governing Board of the PCB announced the decision through a resolution. Reports were circulating that Bari would be confirmed to the position he took over an interim officer after Salim Altaf was sacked last week. His appointment as the chief operating officer of the Board was more or less certain but the announcement was made on Monday. Bari, who is working as Director (Human Resources) in the board, was already holding the post of COO since the sacking of Altaf. Reports said that Bari was given a senior position in the PCB because of his friendship with Butt. Since his appointment as PCB chairman, Butt has handpicked several of his friends for key positions in the board. Earlier this year, Senate's standing committee on sports probed into allegations of nepotism against Butt and later recommended that he should be replaced as PCB chairman. "All the indications were there that Butt would get the required approval from the governing council members soon to make Bari the COO," a report said. The members were asked to pass a resolution to confirm Bari as the COO from his interim position. "Butt was also interested in making Yawar Saeed the COO but he expressed his inability to take the position owing to his growing age and other commitments. Yawar will also steps down as manager of the Pakistan team after the upcoming Champions Trophy," a source said. But former Test player and chief selector, Salahuddin Ahmed was quoted by PTI that if the board went ahead with its decision and appoints Bari as COO, nothing good for home cricket would happen. "You look at Bari's track record. Whenever he occupied key positions in the board, nothing good happened. He was chief selector during the 2003 and 2007 World Cups and look what happened to team's performance," Salahuddin said. He pointed out that Bari had also picked the team for the recent tour of Sri Lanka as interim chief selector and the team ended up losing both the Test series and ODIs for the first time in Sri Lanka .