Local referees ignored by squash event organisers

KARACHI: The organisers of Bahria Town International Squash championship have ignored local referees and invited a foreign referee to supervise the $15,000 event being held in Islamabad.

It has been learnt that the organisers invited Mohammad Fayyaz from Hong Kong, who is on the panel of World Squash Federation (WSF) and ignored the local WSF referees.

“We needed a WSF Referee for this event, so we invited Mohammad Fayyaz,” said Imran Qadir, the Bahria Town official for the event, when contacted. “We also have local referees like Imran and Sajjad,” he added.

He said Fahim Gul is the assessor for the event.

He said they paid Fayyaz the due amount as sanctioned by WSF for its referees on such assignments.

However, this did not go down well with the local WSF referees. “They paid him close to four hundred thousand rupees, while the local referee of the same stature would be available to them at a much lower cost,” said a local referee.

He added that the organisers must have been advised by the Refereeing Directorate of Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) to invite Fayyaz and ignore local referees because they liked to reciprocate “favours they have received from their close aides in national and international refereeing circle.

“There are people in the directorate who favour their friends in national and international refereeing circle by inviting them for local events so that they can get the same in return,” said the local referee.

“On the one hand the Refereeing Directorate of PSF has failed to produce new referees and upgrade the existing referees’ lot and on the other they ignore local referees for international events held in the country.

“This should come to an end. It’s been years. Enough is enough. The PSF should play its role and immediately look into this in order to bring relief to the local referees,” he said.

It is worth adding here that by April 2013, Pakistan had three WSF referees, Tahir Khanzada, Jamshed Gul and Ayaz Khan out of total 25 WSF Referees in the world.

Pakistan had no regional referee in Asia out of 14 till April 2013.

Asian Squash Federation (ASF) then set a target to have three Regional Referees by 2014 and five by 2015.

ASF also pointed out potential WSF Referees from Asia, including Fahim Gul, Imran Khan, Asif Khan, and Sajid Khan from Pakistan.

But the Directorate failed to turn these four into WSF Referees.

The current list of WSF Referees in Asia include Mohammad Fayyaz (Hong Kong), Anthony So (Hong Kong), Yogendra Singh (India), K Srikanth (India), and Jamshed Gul and Tahir Khanzada from Pakistan.

This shows that Ayaz lost his WSF refereeing title.

The Directorate did not lend support to these referees by giving them greater exposure to international championships to improve their confidence and competence in officiating difficult matches.