PESHAWAR: The international digital sports journalism training in the historical city of Baku was completed with an impressive closing ceremony held at the International Olympic Committee Building on Sunday.
The special guest of the ceremony held in the building of the Azerbaijan Olympic Committee was Chingiz Hasanzada, Vice President of the Azerbaijan Olympic Committee. Certificates were given to journalists, Secretary General Ezer Ali, President of Azerbaijan Sports Journalists Association Alder Ismailo, General Secretary Roshan Benatali, Vice Presidents Nargis Mohammadzai and Natig Nasiro, Secretary General Pakistan Sports Writers Federation Asghar Azeem Khan, Secretary Sports Writers Association Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Head of the 11-member Pakistani sports writers’ delegation and other important officials were present.
During the ceremony, the President of the International Sports Journalists Organization, Johnny Merlo, President of AIPS Asia Hei Don Jin and Secretary General Amjad Aziz Malik, specially presented videos regarding the training course and Azerbaijan Sports.
They appreciated the Azerbaijan Sports Writers Association and Azerbaijan Olympic Committee for extending all-out support to the Pakistani journalists during their week-long visit to Azerbaijan for the Digital Media Course jointly organized by Sports Writers Association, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan Sports Writers Federation and Azerbaijan Sports Writers Association.
Speaking at the event, Vice President Azerbaijan Olympic Committee Genghis Hassan said that the friendship between Pakistan and Azerbaijan is wonderful, but unfortunately, there is no enthusiasm for sports.
Hopefully, in the future, sports competitions between the two countries will also be organized. He said such steps would help both Pakistan and Azerbaijan athletes in the future and both the countries would learn valuable things from each other’s expertise.
He said such things should be highlighted on all levels in order to draw a full map of players’ exchange programs, attending each other’s national events and exchanges of trained coaches, trainers besides extending all-out support to each other’s upcoming athletes.
He said it is only possible that the sports media will highlight it because the role of the sports media is very important for the promotion of sports. He said, “Hopefully your training visit will be useful to a great extent and Azerbaijan will be very useful for you all as far as your week-long stay and learning a lot of things will definitely be more productive.”
On this occasion, the President of the Azerbaijan Sports Journalists Association Aldrich Ismailo said that the delegation of sports journalists from Pakistan visited various historical places including media institutions and sports academies.
It was said that different sessions were organized in training to increase the professional capacity of journalists. Addressing the ceremony, Secretary General of Pakistan Sports Federation Muhammad Asghar Azeem thanked Azerbaijan Sports Journalists Association and Olympic Committee. He said that the training session in Azerbaijan was quite successful and the journalists were very impressed by the hospitality and love of the people here.
It should be noted that a training delegation regarding digital sports journalism organized by Pakistan Sports Writers Federation and Azerbaijan Sports Journalists Association has visited Azerbaijan, where they visited historical places, and participated in various training sessions and meetings.
Shahid Afridi on this occasion thanked the Azerbaijan Sports Writers Association members and Olympic Committee office-bearers on behalf of the delegation and assured them full support to the members of the Azerbaijanian sports writers for the forthcoming visit to Karate for the same kind of course to be organized in the final phase.
“We are very thankful for your kind and very supportive hospitality and he and his team of young sports journalists enjoyed it a lot. Besides learning some very vital things based on future aspects of the young journalists about digital media, we loved to visit scenic and historical places,” Shahid Afridi said.
At the end, certificates were distributed among all the participants of the course.