Dushanbe Mayor Rustam Emomali, who is also President of the Tajikistan Federation Football (TFF), has been elected as member of Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) Executive Board.
The 38th Assembly of OCA that kicked off in Bangkok, Thailand on March 2 elected members of the OCA Executive Board and members of the permanent commissions for 2019-2022, according to the TFF press center.
Tajikistan represented at the session by Muhammadsho Abdullozoda, Vice-President of Tajikistan National Olympic Committee (NOC).
The OCA President, Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah was unanimously reelected for the next four-year term.
The Peninsula (Qatar’ daily newspaper) reports that after the official speeches, the OCA showed a short video of the history of the Asian Games, which dates back to the First Far Eastern Championship Games in 1913 in Manila before the first Asian Games took place in 1951 in New Delhi.
The OCA Award of Merit was reportedly presented to three people who have contributed much to the sports movement in Asia: former OCA Information and Statistics Committee Chairman Bahram Afsharzadeh (Iran NOC), Jean Hammam, President of Lebanon Olympic Committee, and Erick Thohir, President of Indonesia NOC and Chairman of the 18th Asian Games Organizing Committee INASGOC.
The Sheikh Fahad Hiroshima Asia Sports Fund award was presented to the former Mayor of Hiroshima at the 1994 Asian Games, Takashi Hiraoka.
The Tajikistan Football Federation is the governing body of football in Tajikistan. The federation was founded in 1936 in the Tajikistan SSR as a sub-federation of the Soviet Football Federation. It was not until 1994 when the Federation was accepted by the international community including the continental and global associations. Current President of the Tajikistan Football Federation is Dushanbe Mayor Rustam Emomali.
The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) is a governing body of sports in Asia, currently with 45 member National Olympic Committees. The current president is Sheikh Fahad Al-Sabah. The oldest NOCs are from Japan and the Philippines, recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1911; whereas East Timor is the newest, joining in 2003. The headquarters of the OCA is located in Kuwait City.
