One of the reasons for the failure is that in Pakistan squash coaches play dual roles as they are both referees and coaches at the same time.

But it is not that Pakistan doesn’t have qualified and good coaches. There are many. According to the Asian Squash Federation’s updated list of World Squash Federation Tutors, there are three Pakistani coaches among the 37 ASF Coaching Tutors in Asia. Fahim Gul is Level-3 ASF tutor, while Yawar Aslam and Khalid Atlas Khan are Level-1 ASF tutors. Fahim Gul is also one of the 11 ASF consultant coaches in Asia.

Besides, Rehmat Khan won the Elite Coach of the Year award in 2003 by Asian Squash Federation. He grabbed two awards, Coach of the Year and Junior Coach of the Year in 2004. He also won the Development Coach of the Year award in 2009. Fahim Gul won the Coach of the Year Award in 2007 and 2006 while Fazal Shah won Certificate of Recognition in 2007. Abdur Rasheed and Mehboob Khan won Certificate of Recognition in 2006.

Ayaz Khan won Development Coach of the Year award in 2005 and Yawar Aslam won Certificate of Recognition the same year. In 2019, Asif Khan won the Junior Coach of the Year award while Abdul Rasheed, Gulab Khan, and Khalid Khan won Certificates of Recognition.

Yet, this all is not helping the ailing coaching system because Pakistan is lagging far behind the Asian region when it comes to the development of squash coaches as only a few coaching courses have been held since 2013, nothing when compared with the coaching courses the regional countries held during the same period – two courses per year on average.

Interestingly, neither any World Squash Federation (WSF) sanctioned course nor any ASF Level-3 course was conducted in the said period by Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF).

Another issue is inconsistent policies of PSF as the federation handles this important subject very unprofessionally.

The federation has been hiring and terminating coaches on the basis of liking and disliking and interestingly they try the same old faces alternately every time because they don’t have many options.

For example, Jamshed Gul was one of the coaches working with the federation in the early years of the last decade but he was replaced with Fahim Gul after some time.

Fahim too could not survive and was terminated by the federation in 2018. Then the federation hired Mo Yasin for a short period, who with the help of associate coaches ran the national squash coaching system.

During this period, the PSF lost a good opportunity to steer national squash coaching out of crisis when they failed to hire former world number six Umar Hayat Khan as the national coach.

Umar, son of renowned national coach Umar Daraz Khan, was ranked 6th in the world in January 1990 and he was a member of the national team that won World Championships in 1985 and 1987.

He was contacted by former Secretary PSF Tahir Sultan but Umar did not agree to the salary the federation offered him.

In July 2018, the federation in its Annual General Meeting requested legendary player Jahangir Khan to help them hire a foreign coach.

Jahangir assured the federation of his support and said he would send his recommendations to them. But nothing was achieved in this regard till the year 2022 came when the crisis deepened.

In 2022, national squash coach Rehman Gul resigned during the national team’s tour to Malaysia for participation in the Asian Team Championship. He joined Sri Lanka’s team as the head coach.

The federation then transferred its coaches Fazal Shah and Asif Khan to squash academies in Peshawar and Liaquat Bagh, respectively, and advertised for a foreign coach with January 29th as the deadline.

In the meantime, the PSF hired former world number six Mir Zaman Gul as the national coach for six months on probation.

Unfortunately, Zaman with Level-I and Level-II coaching certification and more than 15 years’ experience of coaching at two clubs in the United States succumbed to the federation’s nonprofessional approach and he was released after just six sessions with local players.

Meanwhile, the federation after getting no response to the advertisement for the foreign coach decided to contact a few foreign coaches.

First they approached Australian legend Geoff Hunt. Initially, Hunt demanded $30 thousand per month but later he changed his mind and recommended his countryman Dan Jenson, who coaches in the United States.

But Jenson suggested to the federation officials to send players to New York for training and for that Jenson demanded $12 thousand per month excluding accommodation and food.

The federation then contacted Egypt’s Ali Reda, who is a professional squash player and reached a career-high world ranking of World No. 23 in October 2011, but Reda was busy so he said he would be available from November. He demanded $18 thousand per month.

Then the federation contacted Alister Walker, who is a professional squash player and represented England and Botswana and reached a career-high world ranking of World No. 12 in September 2009.

But Walker demanded $7.5 thousand per month and said he would be coming to coach players only for 10 days a month and he would give players a programme for the remaining 20 days.

Also, Walker said that if Pakistani players under his coaching won the World Junior title he should get $10 thousand as bonus and $5 thousand in case any Pakistani reached the final.

The cash-strapped PSF dropped its foreign coach project and once again hired Fahim Gul as the head coach and Zulfiqar Khan and Farhan Zaman as his assistants.

Zulfiqar had served as the head coach in Ecuador, El Salvador, and Germany. He was also among the top ten players in Pakistan. Zulfiqar has Level-I and Level-II certification from Asian Squash Federation.

His proud product was Simon Rosner who achieved world number three position. But Zulfiqar soon got disappointed and left the country for better opportunities.

So this sad tale of hiring a suitable coach for Pakistani players at senior level tells us about the failures of PSF and how the heavy influence of some squash families in the national squash would not let that happen.

Besides, the federation must ponder over an important issue that Pakistan doesn’t have any pool of young talented junior playersbecause currently most of the players are either overage or incapable of learning anything.

This is evident from the fact that all high-prize international events being held in Pakistan are won by foreign players.

Hence, the only solution is to replicate the system Malaysia has implemented under which local coaches produce good players from their regional or domestic circuits. And then those talented players are sent to the national academy where they are turned into champions.