SLAMABAD -  Egyptian top seed Omar Abdel Meguid Sunday brushed aside Malaysian Ivan Yuen 3-0 to become the champion of the $25,000 COAS International Squash Championship 2016.

The giant Egyptian thrashed Malaysian in the final in just 40 minutes, which was played here at Mushaf Mir Squash Complex.

The final was played in front of almost empty venue, as Pakistan Squash Federation in the name of security to Army chief General Raheel Sharif not only denied squash lovers from entering the premises, but also lived up the expectations of barring sports journalists of twin-cities from performing their professional duties. Despite issuing accreditation cards to sports journalists, the PSF secretary Group Captain Amir Nawaz refused to allow journalists to cover the event and said: “We don’t need coverage as only national broadcaster will cover the event.”

It was quite strange that nobody including national broadcaster bothered to cover the event till the semi-finals and only handful sports journalists spent hours to cover the matches from pre-qualifying round till the semi-finals. But when it matters most despite arriving well before time from the scheduled start of the final, they were left high and dry.

When this correspondent contacted Pakistan Squash Federation senior vice president Air Vice Marshal (R) Syed Razi Nawab and drew his attention towards highly irresponsible and totally unprofessional behaviour of secretary Amir Nawaz, Razi promised to look into the matter. But like past, he failed to live up to his words and his mobile phone remained switched off.

It was wonderful occasion to show the world that Pakistan is peace loving country and give lot of respect and love to international players, but just because of the PSF, the historic occasion was wasted in the name of COAS security. The federation at one hand issued number of invitations to their near and dear ones, but genuine sports journalists, who just wanted to cover the event, were denied from performing their professional duties. Rather than accepting his mistake, Amir Nawaz passed on the burden to the ISPR and termed they would invite people and federation can’t do anything.

Sports journalists always pleaded country’s case in the best possible way and fight the players’ cases at the highest level, but in return the federation always treats sports journalists as aliens. Sports journalists community of twin cities have demanded Pakistan Squash federation President Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman and COAS General Raheel Sharif to conduct an inquiry as on what grounds sports journalists were denied from their right from covering the event and ensure next time sports journalists would be given smooth excess. The ISPR should also know sports events are covered by sports journalists not defence beat reporters and prepare sports journalists list just like they had other beat reporters list, as it is a routine exercise when President or Prime Minister are invited for sports related events, sports journalists cover those events.

It was highly surprising result as Meguid was top seed and far superior in international rankings but Ivan was favourite to win the title due to his speed, agility and physical fitness. Hats off to Meguid, who never enjoyed crowd support displayed wonderful skills and taught Ivan a squash lesson to remember. It was a tight first game as Meguid and Ivan were involved in lengthy rallies but Meguid finally took the game 11-8. After playing superbly in the semi-final and carving out sensational victory, Ivan was seemingly tired and still recovering from the nerve-wrecking match.

Meguid was all over Ivan and won the second game 11-5 and it was a supreme Meguid in the third game who was just toying with Ivan. Enjoying his superiority, Meguid forced the thin crowd to buck him up and clap for him, Meguid just finished off Ivan and took the third game 11-4 to clinch the title in 40 minutes of one-sided final.

Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif graced the closing ceremony as chief guest and awarded trophies and cash prizes, while Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman President PSF, AVM (R) Syed Razi Nawab, Senior Vice President Qamar Zaman also attended the closing ceremony.