International players likely to play in Pakistan: Zaman

Legendary player confident of persuading PSA to remove ban.

KARACHI: Legendary Squash player and former British Open champion Qamar Zaman declared that Pakistan is likely to host international players this year in Professional Squash Association (PSA) tournaments.  

The Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) has made new attempts to persuade the PSA to allocate more tournaments to the federation, while efforts to allow international players to participate in Pakistan are also being pushed forward.



International players have not been barred to appear in Pakistan by Asian Squash Federation (ASF) or World Squash Federation (WSF) but it is just PSA which has shunned international entries.

Last year, foreign players featured in the Asian Individual Squash Championship.

PSF senior vice-president and Air Vice Marshall Razi Nawab along with Zaman met PSA Board of Directors to change their perspective regarding security threats in Pakistan.

“We expect to host international players in our PSA events this year,” Zaman told The Express Tribune.

“Our meeting with the PSA officials have had a positive impact on them courtesy a solid presentation from Razi Nawab, who demonstrated even the minutest of facts regarding squash in Pakistan and the services to the sport in the international circuit.”

The former British Open Champion also felt that the PSF would likely to be allotted $25,000 as majority of the PSA members who were present during the meeting had been squash players themselves at one point. Thus, they would be able to understand what Pakistan is lacking due to the ban, the low ranking points and small prize purse in tournaments.

Nawab delivers strong presentation in PSA meeting

According to details learnt by The Express Tribune, Nawab gave a comprehensive presentation to the PSA board in which he stated how Pakistan has been deprived of its due share of PSA tournaments over the last four years.

Despite having 11% of world PSA players, Pakistan has only been given less than 1% of PSA tournaments per year.

It was apprised that an entire generation of players had been wasted due to lack of international events in the country.

“I’m really optimistic that Pakistan will get its deserving share from the PSA and we’ll soon be hosting top tournaments,” stated Nawab.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2014.

Like Sports on Facebook, follow @ETribuneSports on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.