It is strange that the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) has excluded Football from the forthcoming National Games scheduled to be held in different cities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from December 25 to 31. This is discrimination of the working class since they are the footballers and the fans of the game. Is, by any chance, the POA attempting to make the National Games into an elitist event?
According to Faisal Saleh Hayat the President of Pakistan Footbal Federation (PFF) almost 60,000 footballers are registered with the PFF while there are atleast one million more players. What he should have also mentioned is that all of them belong to the poor class, for it speaks volumes why the POA could so nonchalantly exclude football from the National Games. Footballers have no clout to push for their rights.
Except for a few officials who can be counted on the fingers of one hand and include the president of the PPF, there is nothing like a pressure group to rub the nose in the dirt of the president of POA General Syed Arif Hasan for this dastardly act. It is dastardly in its cruelty to the poor whose hopes have been dashed.
Hayat has warned that the PPF would hold countrywide protests against the decision to ignore football. He is also contemplating legal redress. But nothing is likely to come of it, atleast not in time for the reinclusion of football in the forthcoming National Games. Like anyother inequity against the poor, the anger of the PFF will fizzle out.
For Karachi the axing of football ought to be taken as an insult to the city. Karachi, in particular Lyari, is the motherbed of football in Pakistan. In fact before Independence Lyari was the motherbed of football for the whole sub-continent.
Which city in Pakistan, India or Bangladesh can boast such a status for any game, let alone football? But will Karachi protest the axing of football? I do not think so. The reasons are political, according to Hayat. This is a bit mystifying. Could this be a way of insulting the ruling PPP? Because Lyari is said to be the stronghold of the PPP in Karachi? If not the whole of Karachi, then at least the PPP members of the city ought to have protested the axing of football from the National Games. Why have they not?
The Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah should himself protest because this is an insult to the capital of the province. That the PPP parliamentarians have taken no notice of the axing of football from the forthcoming National Games tells its own sad story about the lack of patronage for the game by the ruling party in the province.
It is a fact that the players of Lyari are of the Makrani race and the patronage for the game has been of anyone except the indigenous Sindhis. This is not to say that the game is unpopular in Sindh. It is just as popular among all working class and young boys of any class as a favourite pastime. Nearly every where one goes one can see boys kicking a ball. The other popular game is volleyball. Hockey and cricket are popular in the cities only.
What I mean is that patronage for football does not exist among Sindhis who matter because they do not identify themselves with the common people of the province. They are elitist, they have more in common with the cricket player feudals in other provinces. Football is a poorman's sport while cricket is the lord's game, you see. Jokes aside, the axing of football cannot be ignored. It is a serious matter. There is no other sport in Pakistan with the potential of uniting the four provinces, only football can do it. The sport is popular in all four provinces and the only one in which a healthy sporting rivalry can be generated through inter-provincial contest, such as the National Games is supposed to achieve. When the only sport that can truly achieve this goal is axed from the National Games, it speaks volumes about the short-sightedness of our rulers.
Pakistan is desperate for peace and freedom from terrorism. But the means for peace are, in the short-sightedness of the rulers, such things and beefing security, more road blocks and rounding up suspects etc. They do not consider positive measures like games as a means of cooling tempers and involving the public in healthy activity.
Long before the Games were scheduled there was fear that football would not be included, but Hayat claimed he had talked to the POA president General Arif Hasan who had assured him of full support for football's inclusion in the National Games. However, at the meeting of the executive committee in Lahore, the promised support did not materialise. This, if true, is a stab in the back.
The so-called reason for not including football in the Games is alleged to be poor performance. Well, for one thing, if there are no opportunities to play how can the sport improve its standard? For another, why the discrimination? If Hockey which failed to prove its worth for two decades can be included in the National games, why ignore football?