Racketball became ‘Squash 57’ following its global rebranding initiative spearheaded by the WSF as in 2016 the WSF in partnership with England Squash signposted a change of name for the game, which is played with a larger ball and a shorter racket.

The new name focuses on the key difference to squash – the larger ball, which has a maximum diameter of 57mm (compared with 40mm for a squash ball).

Pakistan is one of the most active Squash 57 playing nations along with the United Kingdom and Norway, according to a survey by the World Squash Federation’s commission to have an understanding of where Squash 57 is being played.

But squash is played in Pakistan for one more reason and that is trying to get visas of foreign countries for employment and staying there illegally. This practice of getting visas to play international squash events and staying there illegally has increased in the past few years. A number of female squash players and their guardians too opted for this opportunity.

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

Last year, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) raised concerns on human trafficking with the PSF. Therefore, the federation made changes to its policy for visa endorsements.

A Senior Vice President of PSF during the federation’s latest annual general meeting disclosed that FIA had recently raised a case with the PSF and asked for the data of players and officials who slipped during foreign tours.

The PSF then decided to revise its criterion for visa endorsements in order to support genuine players and control human trafficking. According to the new criterion, male players within top ten and female players within top five PSF rankings only will be endorsed and only a PSF registered/qualified coach or parent/legal guardian can accompany the players while the surety bond of Rs5 million per person will have to be submitted to the PSF.

Also, the submission of an assurance certificate to PSF by the president of the relevant provincial squash associations and visa endorsement form (already circulated to all associations/departments) to the PSF is mandatory.

During the AGM, Vice President Qamar Zaman suggested that PSF has to remain strict in issuance of endorsement letters for the players and officials in order to address human trafficking.

The first step in this new trend is getting Professional Squash Association’s membership. Pakistan has more than 120 players with PSA membership, making it third in the world of squash after England and Egypt in this regard.

And out of those players, more than 100 players are ranked over 200, who find it really hard to play any international major event due to their low rankings.

This is why Pakistan’s 13 percent squash players registered with PSA did not play a single international event in the year 2022.

This seems strange considering the spree of PSA memberships by Pakistani players as 26 squash players got membership in 2022 -- the highest since 2016. And out of those 26 registered players in 2022, only 15 managed to play international satellite events while only one player played PSA Challenger events.

In 2020, when the Covid-19 hit the world only seven players from Pakistan registered themselves with PSA. Before the pandemic, 13 players got PSA membership in 2019.

In 2021, as many as 24 players became professional and in 2023 as many as 22 squash players got PSA membership.

These players get PSA memberships at discounted rates and consider it an “investment” for their future as they look for opportunities to leave Pakistan for a better future.

They keep entering their names in international events and whenever they get to play any (after trying for years) they just don’t come back.

A big number of players settled abroad using this channel. This is the reason many countries do not give visas to Pakistani players.

Interestingly, PSF in its 43rd Executive Committee meeting held on July 31, 2018, decided to maintain the already approved policy: “PSA membership of players falling within top 20 national ranking is to be endorsed by PSF”.

But PSF does not fully adhere to its policy of allowing “only top 20 players” from the national rankings for PSA membership as out of 23 Pakistani players who got PSA membership sometime back nine players did not have national rankings in the top 20.

This is the reason local squash fraternity believes that PSF is supporting those players’ nefarious plans as nobody can get PSA membership without the endorsement from PSF.