Incheon, South Korea: The Secretary-General of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) has backed the UAE in hosting any of the big continental competitions in the near future.
The host for the 18th Asian Games is scheduled to be announced at a press conference on Saturday (September 20), and Randhir Singh, Secretary-General, OCA, who was attending the Executive Board Meeting of the continental body, said he was all in favour of the UAE, particularly Dubai, in bidding for any of the OCA events in the future.
Originally, Hanoi, Vietnam was chosen to host the Games after Dubai had pulled out of the running at the last minute during the OCA General Assembly on November 8, 2012. But the Vietnamese capital stepped down in April this year, leaving the next edition of the Asian Games without a venue.
The Games were originally scheduled for 2018, but during the OCA General Assembly in July 2009 in Singapore, the committee decided to move the Games to the year before the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Besides the Asian Games held every four years, the OCA has on its roster other continental competitions, including the Asian Beach Games, the Asian Indoor Games, the Asian Youth Games and the Summer and Winter Asian Games.
“The opportunities are countless and Dubai has the best chance to host anything they want to. They have the infrastructure, the hotels, the sporting venues, the communications. They have everything. They just need to show the will to stage any of our competitions and we will do all we can in return,” Singh told Gulf News.
Neighbouring Qatar staged a very successful Asian Games in 2006, where the UAE returned with its best haul with ten medals. “The most important thing that Dubai has is the keenness shown by the Government and officials in using sports as a medium for change. I am confident that at some stage the UAE and Dubai in particular will come up with a bid for something big on the Asian stage,” he added.
The OCA is currently on the look-out for a new host for the 2019 Games after the deadline for accepting bids was extended to July 1, 2014. India, who were out-voted by Incheon four years back, had tabled a fresh late bid for the 2019 edition backed by the new BJP Government that took over in May.
Singh was all in favour of India’s late charge to stage the Asian Games for the third time in the history of the competition. “The new BJP Government has been scoring well on the sports front. More importantly, we have a Finance Minister [Arun Jaitley] who is a sports-lover. He has the interest of sports in his heart and if he wants to, then India can surely bid and stage the best Games,” Singh observed.
