ISLAMABAD - Acting Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) director general Chaudhry Salamat Ali Saroya along with DDG technical/training M Shahid, director Admin/NF Azam Dar, assistant director hostel Malik Imtiaz, assistant director facilities Mumtaz Ahmed and other PSB officials received the Pakistan contingent at Benazir Bhutto International Airport upon their arrival from Glasgow after participating in the 2014 Commonwealth Games on Tuesday morning.
Surprisingly, PSB director general Dr Akhtar Nawaz Ganjera was the notable absentee, as he prolonged his stay in Scotland and is likely to return in two or three days. The sources confirmed to this scribe that Ganjera decided to extend his stay to avoid media at the airport as there were some serious issues which needed to be answered.
Talking to The Nation, acting PSB DG Ch Salamat said: “It was my national and moral duty to honor our athletes who represented the country. I told them they had performed well. Winning three silver medals and one bronze is satisfactory performance keeping in mind ground realities, but I told them clearly, they must improve their records next time around. We will provide them best available facilities and coaches.”
“The players informed me about the difficulties and biased decisions they had to face in Glasgow. We could have easily won gold medal in both wrestling and boxing, but biased decisions cost us dearly. Waseem was the clear winner as the entire world had witnessed, even the crowd booed judges for not awarding decision in Waseem’s favour. Same was the case in wrestling as one point was awarded against Azhar, which cost us dearly. I assured them the entire matter would be taken at highest forum and we will ensure justice would be done in both cases,” he said.
“On the directives of federal government, PSB has allocated a whopping Rs 3 million for hosting various events in all the regional centers to mark Independence Day in befitting manners. We will hold football in Layari, Sindh traditional sports malaakra at Sehwan Sharif, wrestling matches in Multan and Gujranawala, squash and volleyball in Peshawar, polo in Gilgit/Baltistan, while football and volleyball matches in AJK two cities Muzaffarabad and Mirpur. We have allocated Rs 500,000 to each center in this regard.”
“A floodlight cricket match will also be held on August 13 night at Jinnah Stadium between Rawalpindi Islamabad Sports Journalists Association (RISJA) and PSB Officers. Ch Salamat will lead PSB Officers XI. We will also conduct cycle race from Islamabad to Murree on 20th,” he said.
“We have issue directives to all the centers to conduct maximum events to celebrate August 14 to send a positive and soft message of the country to the rest of the world,” Salamat concluded.
Meanwhile, wrestling team manager M Anwar said: “We got many medals during the 15-day struggle in the Commonwealth Games. We are thankful to Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) because a month ago, the participators observed that we would not join to Commonwealth Games at Glasgow. Though Pakistani athletes got a few medals yet they could have won the gold medals in Commonwealth Games, if they have at least 50 per cent facility.”