The game of squash is regulated by the Pakistan Air Force in the country. All the positions in Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) are dedicated for officers (retired or serving) of PAF.

The office bearers of PSF are replaced after some time with new ones. Every time the federation gets new office bearers, the policies are changed as per their vision.

But two things are common: all these office bearers have little knowledge, practical or theoretical, of squash. And all these are very confident and ambitious. This has produced similar results: ambitious projects, tall claims, a number of adventures, and inconsistent policies.

I have been witnessing this pattern for more than a decade. I would like to share what I have seen and observed in this period and how it did not help the game of squash in any case.

In 2012 the PSF decided to base the top three junior players – Danish Atlas Khan, Farhan Zaman and Nasir Iqbal – in the United States of America and they signed a contract with Dover Squash Academy.

Legendary player Jahangir Khan and the then Senior Vice-President of PSF Razi Nawab went to the US in order to arrange funds for the project.

But that adventure failed as only Farhan Zaman (being an employee of PAF) agreed and spent a few months there.

Yet the idea did not die down as the new office bearers of the PSF in an executive committee meeting in October 2014 decided to send Nasir Iqbal and Farhan Zaman to the United Kingdom for coaching (by Mo Yasin) and play at least ten events in a year.

The idea got approved and the programme was to commence from March 2015. This extendable programme was initially for one year. Yasin was to provide free boarding to the players, while club fee, training expenses and food charges were to be borne by PSF.

However, in 2016, the federation scrapped the programme and the reason was that Yasin’s club did not have any top-20 players of the world so Nasir and Farhan would not have got due match practice and competition.

In 2019, the new management of the PSF managed to send six junior players to Egypt for training and this cost the federation heavily. The decision was severely criticised by the local squash fraternity.

The same idea took a new life in 2022 when a top official of the new PSF management decided to send a few top junior players of the country to the United States to prepare for the World Juniors Championship.

The said top official visited the US where he met a former national player based there and discussed this idea of sending top juniors to the US. But this too did not materialise.

In the meantime, the PSF continued with its strange practice of sending teams/players to international events without managers due to shortage of funds although this policy many times resulted in huge embarrassment for Pakistan.

For example, in 2016, the Pakistani team of 14 players went to play the Qatar Open and Doha Open and not a single official from PSF accompanied them. One of the players was stopped by Qatar’s immigration authorities and interrogated for 24 hours. Nobody from PSF was there to help him.

In another example, some players during a trip used public transport in England without paying fare. They just ran away from the second door of the bus.

The officials of British Junior Open have complained to PSF many times that Pakistani players were involved in unethical activities at the championship which embarrassed the organisers and other players and their parents.

The PSF also likes to bid for hosting big international events and most of the time they are not successful due to many reasons but PSF never shies away from bidding.

In 2019, PSF announced that they had bidden for World Juniors 2021 edition and a team of experts from the WSF might visit Pakistan to assess the available facilities at the Pakistan Sports Complex, Islamabad, for the said championship. But PSF lost its bid.

Pakistan last staged the World Juniors Championship in 2004. In 2022, Asian Squash Federation did not allot Pakistan the hosting rights of Asian Junior Individual Championship 2022 and 2023.

There was another, a different kind of project which Secretary PSF Tahir Sultan initiated and that was hosting the Annual General Meeting of World Squash Federation for 2021.

PSF moved a motion in the 50th AGM of WSF that the next AGM should be allotted to Pakistan. The WSF Board allotted the hosting rights of its 51st AGM to Pakistan and it was scheduled in Islamabad from November 22-28 with legend Jahangir Khan as its ambassador.

But the WSF informed the PSF in August that only three countries had confirmed their physical participation in the AGM. Therefore, the WSF decided to hold the AGM virtually.

But this did not deter PSF and the federation decided to request the WSF to give Pakistan the chance of hosting the AGM for 2022 or 2023. Later, sense prevailed and the PSF withdrew the request.

In 2022, the federation decided to adopt the training strategy that was being followed by Egypt. The SVP of the federation during an AGM showed concerns over the fitness of national players resulting in their low performance at international circuit. He then referred to the training strategy being followed by Egyptian Squash and recommended that the same should be followed in Pakistan.

In the light of this recommendation, the senior management of the federation decided to hire an Egyptian coach for national players.

A few Egyptian coaches were contacted then. At the same time the higher management of PSF decided to hire a European coach as well in spite of financial constraints.

This adventure of hiring Egyptian or European squash coaches never materialised.

The federation skipped a number of big events in the past few years including the WSF Men’s World Team Squash Championship, the British Open, Asian Individual Championship, and PSA World Championship.

Trials for international events is another issue as in 2023 the federation made a sudden change in its policy regarding trials to select national team for British Junior Open 2024 which irked provincial squash bodies and they termed it favouritism.

An issue that has been hurting the federation for a long time is the disappearance of players in foreign countries after getting visas for participation in events. Even female players have done this.

According to a media report, a number of squash coaches and players (with no international rankings) in 2022 disappeared after moving to foreign countries.

This alerted the Federal Investigation Agency as it raised concerns on human trafficking with the federation and asked for data of squash contingent members.

Thus, PSF in the last AGM decided to revise the criteria for visa endorsement in order to support genuine players and control human trafficking. This all shows how haphazardly PSF works and how inept they are in dealing with key issues. The federation and its officials are likely to continue with their adventures. Let’s wait for more.