Enticing corruption

Stunning feat in history of World Cup, green shirts have bagged four world titles

Pakistan has ruled the men’s field hockey as its undisputed champion ever since the national team played its first match, a year after the independence in 1947.

A stunning feat in the history of the World Cup, the green shirts have bagged four world titles. Furthermore, they have won three Olympic gold medals and eight Asiad gold medals, besides clinching the prestigious Champions Trophy thrice. The green powerhouse has won laurels in other tournaments too, taking its tally to 29 international titles — achieved between 1948 and the mid-1980s. But then came a fall — a shocking free fall. And till date it remains a mystery as to why those who once ruled the game have now become pushovers so much so that they have to appear in the qualifying matches to seek a berth in top events. In fact, whenever merit is curbed, it has a disastrous impact on all concerned.

Many of the hockey players who represented Pakistan during the 1970s and 1980s were rewarded with jobs in government departments — including Pakistan Customs, one of the most desirable Federal Government departments — due to their sports skills. There were cases wherein these sportsmen superseded their senior office colleagues just because they were making Pakistan proud by winning medals and titles in sports arenas. Some such players, posted in Pakistan Customs based on their sporting performance, eventually went on to become officers of the ‘Collector’ grade by murdering merit. A more shocking fact is that some of the players who were promoted out of turn to the high-ranking posts were even unable to read the official documents — let alone comprehend them — kept at their tables to carry out national duties.

A similar practice also continues in the private sector where athletes get rewarded for on-field achievements and given charge as the bosses of those individuals who have attained the posts on the basis of their academic backgrounds and are awaiting rightful promotions in due course.

Such an unscrupulous practice — be that in the government or the private sector — is akin to opening the doors of corruption. Why would those equipped with relevant academic qualifications feel fulfilled working under those whose specialty lies in games and sports? Wouldn’t they feel pushed to the limit and made to believe that academic merit and excellence is insignificant? Isn’t it infuriating for academic achievers to be surpassed by sports professionals at the office work where sporting prowess is of no use. Still, in the process of acknowledging the achievements of national heroes, merit has over years ended up a casualty.

Rewarding sportsmen with lucrative jobs is as silly and senseless as selecting outstanding office personnel (at government departments, banks, airlines, etc) for national sports teams. Brilliance achieved in the discipline of Accountancy, Human Resources, Sales and Marketing, etc is worthless in the realms of sports. Likewise, having won medals and trophies in games and sports does not qualify an athlete to take charge as collector Customs or as vice president of a bank.

A similar malpractice prevails in the education sector as well where students get admission to professional institutions on the basis of their sports skills instead of their academic background. Just imagine the nonsense approach: a student who has acquired 70 per cent aggregate at the pre-engineering examinations fails to get admission to a professional institution because the admissions were closed at 71 per cent, but one having scored 50 per cent marks on the aggregate does get through based on a merit that is poles apart from the requirement to become an engineer or any other professional.

While on the one hand, a good student is ruing the fact that he missed out on his chance of getting admission to a professional university by a whisker, on the other hand someone who probably spells engineer with an ‘I’ does make his way into an institution from where he is to eventually come out as an engineer.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2024.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.