The missing sportsmanship

Pakistan’s tennis affairs are in doldrums due to personal interests that clearly militate against the sports promotion with transparency and merit. Despite having a chequered legacy of some individual flashes of brilliance and long performance slumps, tennis as a national sport has always evoked enthusiasm amongst sports enthusiasts. The failure to tap into the talent pool of the youth and lack of a proper grooming regimen has, however, left Pakistan tennis at the mercy of individual ambitions of the tried and tested faces that have miserably failed to create a pool of young players, capable of competing and excelling at the international level.

The ageing duo of Aisam and Aqeel had kept trudging along for far too long to permit genuine young talent to surface while the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) kept itself occupied with tried and tested procedures, without instituting a player development system to replace the ageing players. The consequence was the humiliating loss against the Indian Davis Cup squad during the latest Davis Cup international tie played out at Islamabad. Pakistan lost the golden opportunity to beat a depleted Indian team under ideal home and court conditions in an important Davis Cup tie, the winning of which would have given Pakistan an opportunity for qualifying to the prestigious World Group of Davis Cup Pakistan through playoffs. The most painful thing about the loss was the fact that the Indians were playing with a second string squad with their top players absent due to their professional commitments.

Instead of concentrating all its energies on raising a crop of fresh players who could have prevented that national humiliation at Islamabad against a second-string Indian Davis Cup tennis team, the PTF concentrated on winning another term through its preferred candidates, one of them was a playing member of Pakistan Davis Cup team. The PTF announced elections for the posts of President, Secretary and Treasurer hastily in February 2024, after delaying those for 15 months, in utter defiance to Islamabad High Court’s Order of 18 July 2022 that had clearly directed Pakistan Sports Board to frame a uniform policy and rules to hold elections for all the sports associations affiliated with the POA, pending which no elections of any national sports association could take place. Most noticeably, under the same plea, PTF management did not hold elections in November 2023, when its eight-year tenure ended.

During the illegally held elections of PTF on 10 February 2024, questionable means were adopted to knock off the rival panel including the nomination of an illegal member of International Tennis Club (ILTC) Pakistan (a voting unit of PTF) who was not legally authorised to cast a vote as per the rules. The dubious vote was straight away challenged by the rival panel but the organisers allowed the election process to be continued. No PSB representative attended the elections, in deference to the IHC Order that had clearly directed that no elections should be held before framing new election rules for all federations by the PSB.

This comical situation with two parallel ILTC managements has created an embarrassing situation for the country in which Chairman IC Council Peter McQuibban had to intervene and ask the two parallel bodies to resolve the issue internally to put the ILTC Pakistan back on track. A strong possibility of striking down of the PTF elections held in February 2024 is on the cards, purely on the merits of the case, while the machinations continue to take control of the subordinate associations through questionable means.

PSB also needs to step in and play its legally mandated role without waiting for a court order to streamline the sports policy and election rules to save the sports from further atrophying. Clear-cut election rules should be formulated by the PSB to obviate the possibility of any foul play in the election of POA affiliated sports federations. The measure not only shall restore the credibility and transparency in the election process of sports federations but also yield competent and merit-based sports leadership which would steer the sports affairs purely on merit.