Doha: Ahmad Al Kamali, the Chairman of the UAE Athletics Federation, has strongly condemned the bureaucracy that adversely affected a UAE sprinter's preparations for the Arab Games.
Ahmad Sangoor's departure to Doha was delayed as he was unable to get away from his job, meaning he missed the first day of competition in Qatar.
After two days of waiting, he was eventually freed to join up with the rest of the UAE's 4x100m team, who are among the favourites to claim a medal at the Arab Games after they won silver at the Arab Athletics Championships with a time of 39.90 seconds.
"The attitude of some officials is totally wrong," Al Kamali said. "The state spends big amounts of money to prepare these athletes in order to be ready to honourably represent their country and one junior official in a government department comes and hinders everything by refusing to release the athlete who is going to perform a national duty.
"I do believe that anyone who acts in such a way —that proves his ignorance of what this athlete is going to do for his country — should not be in a position to take any decision because he is actually creating obstacles in front of our athletes in their quest to achieve regional and international victories for their country.
"I wonder when such a mentality will be changed? It is time that all the chairmen of the different sports associations in the UAE come together and take a unified stand against such behaviour which is, unfortunately, becoming common and has prevented first-class athletes in the past from taking part in big sporting events, which deprived our country from expected victories.
Sporting movement
"The decision to take part in the Arab Games is a political decision issued by our leaders and there is nobody who has the authority to hinder the full implementation of this decision.
"It is this behaviour that is one of the main reasons of the retreat of our sporting movement. Winning medals for the UAE is a responsibility not only of the participating athletes, but for all and everyone who has any direct or indirect relationship in this respect."
