I have seen the miserable condition of the players who have lost jobs during the last few years after their departments disbanded their sports teams. It’s really painful. Just now if you ask any player who belongs to WAPDA or any other department except the armed forces, they will tell you that they are in deep anxiety following the instructions from the Prime Minister Imran Khan to state departments, corporations and autonomous bodies to stop funding their sports teams and rather divert this money to the regional teams. All players are in great shock, not knowing what will happen to their jobs and what will happen to their sporting careers.Here I reproduce the IPC Ministry’s letter which was forwarded to some organisations last month. "Discontinue funding to departmental sports teams of various government agencies, corporations and autonomous bodies and instead these funds may be utilised for the promotion of the regional sports teams.

“In order to implement the direction of the honourable prime minister you are therefore requested to prepare a practical transition plan to divert funding from departmental teams to regional teams within two months which should be implemented within a period of six months from March 1, 2022,” says the letter, which has been issued to WAPDA, PIA, Higher Education Commission (HEC), Railways, National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), FBR and IGs Punjab, Sindh, KP, Balochistan, Gilgit Baltistan and AJK.

Some other departments, including SSGC, KRL and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) are also expected to be given the same instructions. Yes, the armed forces have been exempted from this act. According to the top officials concerned, recruitment in the armed forces is not made on the basis of sports. But there are some cases where the Army has also offered contracts to some top Pakistani players.

Imran Khan, himself a sportsman, has been seen playing with the careers of athletes. He made a large number of cricketers jobless and now has taken the step to make jobless thousands of players of other sports disciplines as well.

He himself won the 1992 World Cup through a departmental structure. And under Younis Khan’s captaincy Pakistan lifted the T20 World Cup Trophy via the same structure.

Yes, the PCB has increased the remunerations of the top cricketers who are given domestic contracts and has also started paying age-group top teams during domestic events but these steps help only are a few cricketers. Even some quality players are unable to make it to their provincial teams for the First XI or 2nd XI. Pakistan is a populous country and here we will talk about quantity and from there you will get quality. The population of Australia and England is not that huge and there the corporate sector is also strong. The general standard of life in those countries is much better than Pakistan. And that is why we cannot afford to have such a system which is in place in those states.

Let’s talk about Pakistan. Here the whole family in most of the cases depends on a player’s meagre salary. Most players come from low- income groups. If we see cricketers, around 95 percent come from poor background. And so is the case with the rest of the sports.

In cricket things have been done but I request the premier that he should not apply this formula to other sports. The PSB and IPC say that they will seek sponsors for Pakistan's leading players in the new system. But I must say that such branding will not be forever.

I have seen during the last couple of years that despite pledging and signing a proper contract sponsors have left the athletes alone, telling them that their financial condition has deteriorated due to Covid and they cannot sponsor them. Pakistan’s corporate sector is reluctant to back sports other than cricket.

Don’t leave our players to the corporate sector or even provincial governments. If departmental teams are disbanded, the contractual players will go home while the regular athletes will be sent on duty.

And I am hundred percent sure that the regular players will stop playing for Pakistan because they will not have time then for their training. And we will therefore lose all the charm in our sports. We will not be able to get athletes for national duty.

There are two things which attract the youth towards sports. One is a job and the other is to play for Pakistan in the international circuit. If you take away from them the job option then no parents will allow their kids to adopt sports as their profession. It will really kill Pakistan’s sports.

WAPDA has a massive contribution to the sports development of Pakistan. Most of our top players, who have been winning medals or competing at international level, belong either to Army or WAPDA. So don’t unsettle them and let them be.

The top players in each discipline should be provided sponsors by the government if it can do so as sports have become more demanding. The premier should know that a massive investment is needed in sports. Don’t leave it to the corporate sector which is not interested at all to back the Olympic sports. Along with keeping the departmental structure intact provinces should be bound to invest their sports budget rightly and raise such teams which could beat departmental sides in the National Championships and National Games.

But I know that the federal government cannot force the provinces to do so. Provinces have huge sports budgets but these are not spent in the right area, which is a big issue.

Yes, those departments which have not been working properly on their sports teams can be forced to bring professionalism in their approach.

The departments should have their proper indoor and outdoor sports infrastructure and modern training equipment. Instead of disbanding departments, efforts should be made to boost the efficiency of departments. Moreover, departments’ recruitment process should be improved so that more quality athletes could be hired. A single individual should not be given the authority to pick a player but the scouting system needs to be more accurate and based on merit.

73.alam@gmail.com