Pakistan hopeful to revive Int'l sports events at home with Chinese team' s arrival

Pakistan hopeful to revive Int'l sports events at home with Chinese team' s arrival

After a long struggle of two and half years by Pakistan to revive international sports events at home a ray of hope has emerged in the country' s sports and public circles as they believe that the international teams will reconsider their plans with the arrival of Chinese hockey team in December, this year.

Officials of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) looked optimistic to restore international hockey actions in the country by urging other nations to send their teams to Pakistan after the successful visit of China hockey team.

"We are confident that other teams will also come to Pakistan after we successfully host four-match series against China this year," said PHF secretary Asif Bajwa on Sunday.

Chinese hockey team is scheduled to arrive in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi on December 19 from Beijing to play four matches test series against the hosts.

"This is a great opportunity for us to soften the image of Pakistan in international sports community and hopefully pave the way for more international sports event here," Bajwa said.

During the last five years the international sports events suffered badly in Pakistan because of the terrorist attacks at public places in which at least 35,000 people were killed including over 5,000 security personnel.

Due to the restive situation in the country other nations refused to send their teams to Pakistan. In these circumstances all Pakistani sports event got affected but Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) was suffering the most losses.

Then PCB officials, by using government' s diplomatic channels, succeeded to convince Sri Lanka to send its national cricket team to visit Pakistan in early 2009.

But unluckily on March 3, 2009 the Sri Lankan team came under terrorist attack when some unknown gunmen attacked their bus on its way from hotel to stadium in Pakistan' s eastern city of Lahore where they were to play a match against the hosts.

In the result of the attack eight Pakistanis including six policemen were killed and six Sri Lankan players and two officials were injured. Quickly after the incident the Sri Lankan team was airlifted from the Qadafi Stadium Lahore and was sent back to Sri Lanka.

Due to this grave incident, all the international sports activities were stopped and country suffered millions of dollars revenue loss annually.

In spite of all efforts Pakistan failed to persuade any single country to send its teams of any sports for a tour so resultantly only a few low-profile and indoor sports event could be arranged after the attack.

Since the start of this year, Pakistani authorities have been claiming that the law and order situation is fully controlled and that they will arrange security arrangements for the players if any country sends its team to Pakistan in future.

"We have made our preparations to provide maximum protection to Chinese hockey team during their visit in December and besides this all international teams will be treated like this in future," federal interior minister Rehman Malik said while talking to media.

According to officials, Chinese hockey team will start their week-long trip with opening hockey test match at Hockey Club of Pakistan (HCP) ground on Dec. 20 and will play last match on Dec. 25 in Lahore.

Pakistan team will also pay a return visit to China next year on a similar assignment.

Editor: yan

English.news.cn   2011-10-30 22:44:51 FeedbackPrintRSS
ISLAMABAD, Oct. 30 (Xinhua)