THE Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee is keeping its fingers crossed that the nation will be allowed to take part in the 2010 Commonwealth Gam-es.
A final decision on whether Fiji will be allowed to take part in the 2010 Commonwealth Gam-es in Delhi, India will be made at the Comm-onwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be hosted in the city of Port of Spain in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago on November 27-29.
Despite a recommendation from the powerful Commonwealth Minis-terial Action Group (CMAG) for the Commonwealth Games Federation to exclude Fiji from next year's Games, FASANOC is keeping hopeful.
FASANOC president Vidhya Lakhan said they had appealed to the Commonwealth council on the matter and they had received tremendous support.
Lakhan said they had appealed on a number of counts and the main thrust was to separate sports from politics.
"We submitted that sports should not be a sanctionable item," Lakhan said.
"There are other sanctions such as trade but sports should not be included in that."
A total of 70 countries will vote on whether Fiji will be allowed to take part in the games and lobbying for this has been ongoing.
"We have spoken to a number of federations to get their governments to separate sports from politics," he said.
"We have received great support and still hopeful that we will be taking part in the games."
Lakhan said most of the commonwealth nations had backed Fiji to take part in the games.
Games Facts:
- The Commonwealth Games is a multinational, multi-sport event.
- Held every four years, it involves the elite athletes of the Commonwealth of Nations.
- Attendance at the Commonwealth Games is typically around 5,000 athletes.
- The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) is the organisation that is responsible for the direction and control of the Commonwealth Games.
