Preferring personal gains to game has wrecked Pakistan snooker

KARACHI: From millions of rupees to peanuts. This is how an individual has brought the wonderful game of snooker to this stage allegedly due to personal gains including Pride of Performance.

“When people compromise for rewards and other benefits, how they will plead the case of cueists,” people question.

Two officials of the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Federation (PBSF) travelled to Islamabad to get the Rs1 million cheque from Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) Director General retired Col Asif Zaman the other day.

There was no need of going on the sojourn as it has been the practice that the PSB sends the cheques to national sports federations by courier.

There is no focus on setting the house in order and constitutional violations are taking place every now and then.

The officials have made a mess in the media by constantly using PBSA as nomenclature of body in their press releases and official documents instead of PBSF.

Nine years have gone by when the general body gave its nod to convert PBSA into PBSF but in vain. Another decision of extending the term of office-bearers from two to four years was however implemented forthwith as it suits certain individuals.

Due to Covid-19 sponsors have given a cold shoulder to the PBSF and instead of drawing effective marketing strategy most of the national sports federations as well as provincial sports associations have become dependent on government funding.

The federations don’t share their audit reports with the media and allegedly misuse the grants.

The government has taken a wise decision to put an embargo on the annual and special grants of some federations and slashed the grants of others due to joyrides and other corrupt practices.