ISLAMABAD - International squash will return to Pakistan in May when Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) will host the Asian Seniors Individual Men's Squash Championship here in Islamabad.
PSF Senior Vice President Air Vice Marshal Syed Razi Nawab, who is also the vice president of Asian Squash Federation (ASF), announced this in the Rawalpindi Islamabad Sports Journalists Association (RISJA) ‘Meet the Press’ here at the PSB Media Centre on Tuesday.
“The PSF will honour newly-crowned Asian junior champions with a cash prize of Rs 50,000 each along with the head coach Jamshed Gul in a grand reception to be hosted in their honour and PSF president Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt will hand over the awards to them,” he said.
Razi said it was quite unfortunate that World Squash Federation (WSF) had turned down our request of allowing us to hold two 25,000 and two 10,000 dollars championships in Pakistan sighting security reasons. “The World and Asian Squash Federations are cooperating with us but it is the ‘Players Association’ who are not letting international players coming to play in Pakistan and sending negative warnings regarding law and order situation here,” he added.
“We had sent a formal request to India to play a bilateral squash series and we were ready to play in India first. But they denied our offer, as their government is the main hurdle in going ahead of the event.”
Razi said they had hefty sponsor of UAE Dirham 100,000 still intact for the series against Egyptian players and the UAE Squash Federation was very much keen to host that series. “It was earlier decided to hold it on March 25 to 27, but due to non-availability of Egyptian players, who are busy in international events, the series will be held on March 28-30 instead.”
When this correspondent asked Razi due to prevailing law and order situation in Karachi, the top players had declined to appear in the DHA Pakistan Circuit-I Squash Championship and demanded the federation to shift the venue to either Islamabad or at least change the proposed dates, he replied: “We will provide all the players foolproof security and they will send the players through C130 and the matches will be played in DHA. We will also talk to the parents and players and try to address their concerns.”
Razi once again requested government, multi-nationals and national institutions to lend a helping hand to the federation and provide sponsorships to them so that they could regain the lost glory of squash.
To another query regarding when Pakistan would be able to break into top 10 in PSA rankings, Razi replied: “I can't give a confirm date as we are trying hard to break into top rankings, but we have set the year 2013 to achieve this goal. We have quality players like Nasir Iqbal, Ali Bokhari, Bilal Zakir and in females Sadia Gul is the real hope of Pakistan to win international events. The federation will certainly invest in her and provide her maximum international exposure.”
“Maria Toor is nominated by World Squash Federation as Sports Ambassador and she will fight the case to include squash in Olympics 2020, and there are high hopes the decision would be taken in May to include squash in Olympics,” Razi concluded.