News

Argentinian hockey team may visit Pakistan

2010-03-11 19:03:00

ISLAMABAD – Ambassador of Argentina in Islamabad, Rodlfo J Martin Saravia said Tuesday that Argentinean hockey team would be ready to visit Pakistan for a bilateral series if they are be invited for the tour in near future.

He was talking to reporters here at Pakistan Sports Complex after meeting with Federal Minister for Sports Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani as the meeting between both the officials continued for one hour. He further said he was willing to enhance cooperation with Pakistan to promote sports activities in both the countries.

Rodlfo further said that Argentina was enthusiastic to seek support from Pakistan in the three disciplines — hockey, squash and badminton. “We have already inked the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for cooperation in the field of sports. Our players are visiting here without any fear and hockey team may visit on the request of Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) for bilateral series,” he maintained.

Responding to a question he said that Argentinean polo player recently participated in the polo fixture at Lahore. “Pakistan has graceful peaks and our mountaineers often visit Pakistan to scale the highest peaks of the world. Although security is an issue in Pakistan, but it can be overcome,” he said.

The Federal Minister for Sports said that Pakistan was willing to gain coaching facilities from Argentina in three sports — polo, football and tennis. “A tennis event will be held very soon in Islamabad. A team from Argentine will visit Pakistan to compete our top players because the standard of the Argentina tennis is higher than in Pakistan,” he added.

Replying a question Jakhrani said, “We have beautiful peaks and we can attract the international mountaineers for expeditions. One mountaineer spends on average over US $40,000 on one visit. This can boost our economy. We should concentrate on it,” the minister further said.
“We want to get coaching services in soccer and we will provide facilities to our upcoming boys at district level.
Argentine also has qualified coaches of polo and we will seek the support in this game for Argentina to groom our polo players,” he concluded.

If the tour goes on as suggested, the security agencies will have a task ahead, since they have shown incompetence of extreme proportions during the Sri Lanka cricket team’s tour to Lahore when the CID had warned them of a plans by spy agency of a neighbouring country. 

Source  nation.com.pk