Stringent measures, audits likely in Pakistani Olympic Association

ISLAMABAD: A high-level forensic audit is likely to be launched into the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) after the body failed persistently to justify its role and budget allocated to it with years of falling flat in international competitions, ARY News reported citing sources.

All the donation and grant proceeds that the POA has been endowed with will be audited while the budgetary allocation to this department too will meet scrutiny, the sources privvy to the matter told ARY News.

Once the audit and scrutiny have been conducted on the main association, the government shall then move on to sub-committees and sports federations. All the mafias to have established parallel bodies to maintain their stronghold in sports will be cracked down against.

All the federations and associations not recognized by the international community and bodies will be banned, sources said.

Earlier yesterday as Pakistan mourned the failure in Tokyo 2020, Prime Minister’s aide Shahbaz Gill alluded to the government’s intention to ask retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan to resign as the POA president, a post he’s held for well over one-and-a-half decades.

CRICKET BIDS TO RETURN TO OLYMPICS IN 2028

Separately, for cricket fans, Cricket’s world governing body, the ICC, said early this week that it intends to push for the sport’s return to the Olympics at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

The International Cricket Council said it would start preparations on an Olympic campaign to point out “the sport’s inclusion in 2028 would mark the end of a 128-year absence.”

Cricket has appeared once in the Olympics, at Paris in 1900, where the Devon and Somerset Wanderers, representing Great Britain, beat the only other entrants, a team of British embassy staff appearing as France, by 158 runs in a one-innings match.