Punjab

Polo club raises Rs4.5m for flood-hit

City’s leading polo players saddled up to raise Rs4.5 million in an exhibition match at the Lahore Polo Club.

Express December 20, 2010

LAHORE: The city’s leading polo players saddled up to raise Rs4.5 million in an exhibition match at the Lahore Polo Club on Sunday for the survivors of this summer’s catastrophic floods.

“The polo community, generally speaking, is an affluent and privileged community so giving was a major part of this event,” said chief organiser Naveed Sheikh. “The response was amazing. We have made around Rs4.5 million for the floods.”

Teams sponsored by Bank Alfalah and Guard Rice played a thrilling match with plenty of goals, the latter winning by a comfortable margin. Ticket prices ranged from Rs500 to Rs2,000.

The audience included young people as well as several elderly bureaucrats and politicians.“The ambience is very special. It’s for polo lovers and people who want to dress in their Sunday best,” said Zaynab Tariq, a third-year student at University College Lahore. The polo players were awarded 100 US dollars for each goal. At the end of the match they donated their prize money to the charitable cause as well. “It was very heartening seeing people come out with all the madness that is going on in the country,” said polo player Saqib Khakhwani, who has represented Pakistan at the internation level. “It’s good for Lahore, it really shows the pride.”

Fellow player Ahmed Nawaz Tiwana hailed the event as “a major success”.

Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khosa, the senior adviser to the chief minister, distributed the prizes to the players and the organisers as chief guest at the event. He congratulated the Lahore Polo Club and commended it for bringing attention to flood relief. Khosa, responding to a question, also criticised Salmaan Taseer, saying his behaviour was “most unbecoming” for the governor of a province.

The event was organised by the Lahore Polo Club, which also recently launched a proposed charity called Polo for Pakistan. “We set up this charity to help Pakistan, which is in great need,” said Polo Club president Irfan Ali Hyder.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2010.