By Ahmed Al-Refaee, KUNA
Kuwait : The Asian Handball Federation (AHF) will not stand handcuffed at the decision made by the International Handball Federation (IHF) to repeat the Asian qualification for the 2008 Olympic Games, Secretary General of the AHF Dr. Roshan Anand said on Sunday.
In statements to KUNA, Anand said the meeting of the executive office of the AHF, chaired by Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah, held here last night, adopted numerous important decisions “to return the rights to its people.” He said the federation decided to send a letter to the IHF to inform it on the refusal of the decision to repeat the games because there were no reasonable legal reasons behind this step.
During the meeting, the conferees approved Kuwait’s team (men) and Kazakhstan’s team (women) to represent Asia at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
The federation also decided to send letters to all Asian countries requesting them to refuse to host any Asian finals games or take part in them if carried out by the IHF.
Meanwhile, Anand said the executive office agreed on numerous decisions regarding the championship in 2008 topped by approving the Asian countries taking part in the 13th Asian Championship for men (qualifications for the Olympic Games) due in Asfahan, Iran on February 17-25.
The ten participating countries are Kuwait, Japan, South Korea, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, China and Iran.
They also agreed to allow Jordan to organize the 3rd Junior Handball Championship on July 5-11, Bangladesh will organize the Asian championship for Youths on July 25 to August 5 and Thailand will organize the 12th Asian Championship for women on December 3-10.