PSF’s AGM deferred

KARACHI: Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) has postponed its Annual General Meeting (AGM) which was scheduled for Thursday (today), and it will now be held on August 1.

“The AGM has been postponed due to the commitments of PSF’s high-ups. It will now be held on August 1,” said Game Development Officer of PSF Aamir Iqbal while talking to ‘The News’ on Wednesday.

According to a source, the PSF was all set to hold elections for the President’s slot in the said AGM.

The source added that the senior officials of the current management including Senior Vice-President Shahid Alvi, Secretary Tahir Sultan and Director Pakistan National Squash Academy (PNSA) Aftab Qureshi were likely to be replaced in the AGM.

“The AGM was likely to take the step of replacing the senior officials with the new ones but since it got postponed, those officials also got some time to stay. But they will soon face this fate,” said the source.

The source added that the current management continued to support the damaging policies of its predecessor and did not take any concrete step for the development of squash in the country.

“The sport has been in turmoil as 88 is the highest ranking of any Pakistani squash player at international level, while they have only managed to win some low-priced PSA titles since 2005. There has been an acute shortage of world-class players since the retirement of Jansher Khan, hence no bright future is in sight,” added the source.

The source said the incumbent management also kept supporting parallel squash associations in Sindh and Punjab while it also helped in forming a parallel body in Balochistan.

“They also held a useless series with Egypt as neither was it cost-effective nor did it help the local players. They also removed the national coach and now there is no full-time coach for Pakistani players.”