Glasgow fiasco

The 20th Commonwealth Games gala is over but the shame Pakistan contingent's poor performance earned for the country will live, and it should thicken forcing accountability of those behind this monumental disaster. Of more than 820 medals in contention at the games, Pakistan won only four, including three silvers and a bronze. Pakistan won no gold, but Kiribati (population about 100,000) did win a gold medal. And so was the case of Botswana, Granada and Cameroon - can you locate these countries on the map? After India, which won 64 medals including 15 gold; Pakistan was the most populous nation at the games, but look at its share of medals. It's not that our players failed, they could do only this much given their below par training and lingering uncertainty about their participation. Is it not the failure of the men who head and run various sports organisations from their gilded chairs, and never stop fighting each other over undermining the morale of the men in the amphitheater? But for the timely decision of the Lahore High Court in the dispute between the Pakistan Sports Board and Pakistan Olympic Association, the country's participation was in question. Because of this dispute the hockey and squash federations had failed to meet the accreditation deadlines and their teams could not participate in the Commonwealth games. The running feud between the sports czars - and this feud is over everything except how to obtain environs conducive to sharpening potential sportsmen's edge over their international rivals.
The colossal failure at Glasgow is said to have opened some eyes at the level of the federal cabinet. How much is this eye-opening, apparently not much of it. Accepting the failure the concerned federal minister Riaz Hussain Pirzada has held the Pakistan Olympic Association guilty of lack of 'effective training' of the athletes over the last two years. But is it not a fact that his government was in power for the better part of these two years. What held him back from intervening in order to sort out the differences between various sports outfits? Perhaps, Pirzada could say only this much, fearing not to say something, which may expose his innocence about the high-tech international sports events. Competing against the world's best teams is no joke; it requires extensive training, hard work and technical assistance - which is hard to come by in Pakistan's patronage-ridden sports managements. Pakistan has the talent but like a diamond in rubble it has to be cut and polished. The sports organisations should be headed by professionals and not political cronies, and the funds and grants they receive in the name of promotion of sports should be subjected to periodic public scrutiny. Unfortunately, the contentions and rivalries that run through the working of most of the sports organisations in Pakistan tend to make them jealously-guarded empires. This should change, otherwise the danger is there of Pakistan slipping further down from its 23rd position on the Glasgow award table.