Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced that the ban on public departments, corporations and autonomous bodies funding sports teams would be removed. By announcing this at a ceremony where he presented cheques to those who had won medals at the recent Commonwealth and Islamic Solidarity Games, he made the event meaningful. The ban had been imposed by the previous PTI government, which was ironically headed by someone who had been an international sportsman himself.
While the departments and corporations were virtually the backbone of both cricket and hockey, it was in the less popular sports that they really provided a haven for sportsmen. The salaries they got were not extravagant, but they kept the wolf from the door, and there was a career afterwards in the department, as far as the sportsman concerned was educationally qualified. These organizations played a talent-spotting role, particularly in covering the ground between school or college and professional sport. Mr Sharif mentioned the need to encourage sports in colleges and universities. He should have mentioned schools, which is where youngsters can have raw talent directed. School sports are not about finding stars. They are meant to introduce curious young people to the potential of their bodies. If one of them has the potential to be a world beater, then there must be some way of providing him or her with training, and a living. That is where the deparments come in. Or are supposed to.
The present step should not be seen as a return to the past. The departments must accept that they were not delivering the goods. At any level beyond the regional, the prides of the departmental teams could not win for Pakistan.The departments must not merely restore the old system, but introduce new faces, new coaches, new role models, so that the potential of the Pakistani sportsman is unleashed.
