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What is wrong with Pakistan sports? (XI)

By Zakir Hussain Syed

A national sports institute must also have a sports medicine wing with specialists trained from abroad. Dr Waqar of the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) is doing a good job in this area and now that he has a new building specifically for this purpose in the Pakistan Sports Complex. He should develop this facility on scientific lines. Most importantly, this facility must have the latest equipment in line with foreign institutes of this type so that the specialist trained here are properly qualified. Holland has some of the finest physical fitness and sports medicine schools. In late 90s, during one of my personal visits to that country, I had negotiated a training programme with one of the universities that promised to train a batch of six Pakistani physical experts free of cost in Holland coupled with regular training courses in Pakistan by their experts. On my return, I gave all the details to Mr Javaid Ali Khan, PSB director general at that time, and the sports ministry but nobody followed it up. Perhaps, it was too early for the system at that point of time but this facility would have been of great help to Pakistan sports. Somehow, we are reluctant to adopt modern methodologies because we are afraid of being exposed but this is the only way forward. It is not too late even now but the approach has to be methodical and futuristic.

The latest election farce of Athletics Federation of Pakistan (AFP) is just one small example of how the national sports federations are making a mockery of the entire system and how daring they have become in defying the instructions of the PSB and the sports ministry. The first action that the PSB should have taken was to disaffiliate this body followed by stoppage of its grant in aid, both special and annual. It should then follow up by calling the explanation of its top officials for defiance of Prime Minister’s directive which specifically requires serving and retired government servants to secure NOC from establishment division before holding any office in the national sports organisations. Under this directive, they are further directed to seek annual clearance of the authorities to continue. If the AFP top gentlemen are unable to give satisfactory answers to these explanations, they should be officially debarred from holding any office in future in any of the national sports organisations.

According to press reports, a representative of the PSB specifically asked the AFP delegates not to go ahead with these elections because they violated the sports policy approved by the President of Pakistan and the cabinet. It is not clear what was the reaction of the representatives of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) who were supposed to oversee these elections. But it is no secret that the POA has openly encouraged defiance of this sports policy. As a first step, the AFP office in the Pakistan Sports Complex should be closed down and let the AFP look for another option on their own.

This latest episode brings me back to my earlier comment on this sports policy. It has not been implemented and it never will be. A realistic reevaluation has to be made at the highest level and the sooner this policy is abandoned, the better it will be for sports in this country. We used to be one of the top athletics nations in Asia until late 60s. Look at where we are now and yet people who are responsible for this debacle feel no shame over this terrible decline. Eight years is a long time to improve the general health of any sport and yet people want to cling on – why? The AFP could have improved athletics standards in Pakistan by simply organising regular countrywide running events separately for youngsters and grown ups in both rural and urban areas with good cash incentives. And they would have by now developed a strong athletics base for future. But this involves effort and organisational ability plus planning which at least this set of office bearers of AFP has not shown so far.

To be continued

(Zakir Hussain Syed was the first and youngest director general in the history of the Pakistan Sports Board. In this series of thought provoking articles, Zakir Hussain Syed has pinpointed some of the major ills afflicting our sports together with realistic solutions to these problems.)

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