Asia Times: Pakistan's sports legend given marching orders


	December 21, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Pakistan's sports legend given marching orders
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - One of the world's most acclaimed sportsmen, squash legend Jehangir Khan, has decided to turn his back on the country of his birth, Pakistan, which he says affords him scant recognition, and is prepared instead to pander to military officers.

Jehangir Khan's mind was finally made up after he was booted out of the national carrier, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), where he had been employed as general manager of sports, later downgraded to general manager of squash.

Despite having highly attractive offers from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the Sultan of Brunei, a personal friend and fan, Khan preferred to stay in Pakistan to help boost Pakistan's image through his world-wide popularity. For this, he accepted a very modest package worth about US$1,200 a month from PIA. He has also in the past turned down attractive offers to coach in France, England and Australia, preferring to pass on his expertise to the youngsters of his country.

But Pakistan's military decision-makers insist that for cost-cutting reasons Khan's sacking from the state-owned airline was inevitable, and that his publicity and commercial value was negligible as he no longer plays squash.

Suffering from a double hernia in childhood, Khan strived against many odds to stamp his claim as squash's most successful and dominating player since the sport was first introduced at Harrow school in England in 1830. At the age of 14 he won the first of three World Amateur titles and in 1981, aged 17, he won the World Open title. He went on to win this title five more times (1982-1985, 1988), as well as winning the blue-ribbon British Open 10 times in a row.

Jehangir - whose name means conqueror of the world - hails from a dynasty of squash players who have dominated the sport for many decades, including his father Roshan, uncle Hashim and Mohibullah Khan. At the height of his career, for a five-and-a-half year period, he was undefeated in hundreds of first-class games, maintaining a level of fitness that took Herculean effort and rigid discipline to maintain. He also won the US Open hardball championship. He retired from squash in 1993 after helping Pakistan win the World Team Championship in Karachi.

Jehangir now regrets his decision to remain loyal to Pakistan, and in not following in the footsteps of other Pakistani squash players who have made fortunes abroad. "I should also have left, like Hashim Khan [seven times British Open champion), Azam Khan [four times British Open champion], Rehmat Khan and others who are living abroad and who still earn a lot of respect and honor, as well as make money," Jehangir told Asia Times Online.

PIA first hired Jehangir in 1977 when he as 14, soon after he had won his first world amateur title, in doing so becoming the youngest ever play to hold up the trophy. The purpose was to improve the image of both the airline and the country.

To rub salt into Jehangir's wounds over his dismissal, he has been replaced as general manager of sports at PIA by a retired colonel, Muddasar Asghar, who had an ignominious sojourn as secretary of the Pakistan Hockey Federation, and who only played once for his country at hockey, coming on as a substitute for two-and-a-half minutes. The pips on his shoulder are widely believed to be the reason that Asghar got the job.

The managing director of PIA, Chaudhary Ahmed Saeed, was a classmate of Pakistan's military ruler, President General Pervez Musharraf, at FC College, Lahore. At the time Saeed was appointed to the position, he had no background in the aviation industry, having experience in the shoemaking and textile industries.

The chairman of PIA, retired lieutenant-general Haq Nawaz, is known to be keen to bring in as many army officers as he can into the organization in an attempt to turn the country's second largest corporation around - it posted a loss of about $120 million last year. The government's approach to its present economic difficulties is to militarize all national institutions as far as possible in an attempt to stem their drain on the national coffers.

Certainly, since independence in 1947 successive administrations have done their best to place their men in top positions, but Musharraf has taken the policy to new heights.

The Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) is the country's largest corporation, and from top to bottom it is staffed by army personnel. It is headed by a serving lieutenant-general and its eight electricity boards, which manage electricity supply in eight urban centers, are headed by serving brigadiers. Even the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC), an autonomous state-run power generation company, is headed by a serving brigadier, while the top management comprises army officers.

The power sector, though, still cannot meet World Bank targets for generating revenue, and WAPDA's transmission and distribution losses still amount to more than 30 percent and those at the KESC to over 45 percent. The management has also failed in the privatization of these two entities simply because they have been unable to make them turn a profit.

Cricket, hockey and squash have traditionally been the main sports vehicles for promoting Pakistan's identity on the world stage. Now, all of these disciplines are under the command of members of the armed forces, whose inflexibly has gone a long way in eroding the strengths of the sports.

When cricket was in the hands of a professional manager, such as Arif Ali Khan Abbassi (he also on several occasions managed PIA), the team produced some of its best results. Further, under Abbassi's astute management, the commercial side of the game was developed so that it was able to generate funds that could be ploughed back in to the sport, such as improving facilities, and players were considerably much better paid.

In the mid-1990s, Pakistan's cricket team was ranked the best test team in the world, and they won the World Cup (one-day cricket) in Australia in 1992. Of the top 10 best players in the game at the time, five came from Pakistan. Presently, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is headed by a lieutenant-general, Tauqir Zia, a former Corps Commander in Mangla and currently an inspector-general of training at general headquarters. After he took over, Pakistan lost a string of matches, even going down to Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, not exactly powerhouses, especially the latter. And they have even been on the losing side at home, a rarity indeed.

Zia blames the decline in the game on illegal betting and match-fixing. He also plans compulsory English classes for all international players. According to Zia, the reason why players do not perform is because they do not know enough English! He says that they are reluctant to perform as if they win a man of the match award they will be interviewed before millions of people on television. Since Zia wears a uniform, though, nobody dares argue with this wisdom.

Hockey, meanwhile, is Pakistan's national game and the country has won championship trophies and Olympic titles many times over the years. Up to last year, Pakistan regularly won the prestigious Azlan Shah tournament in Malaysia without losing a match. However, the military regime decided to install the Corps Commander of Lahore, Lieutenant-General Aziz Khan (who has now been elevated to the rank of a full general and is chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee) as chairman of the Pakistan Hockey Federation. Since then, the team has been in decline and has not been able to win any tournaments.

The Pakistan Squash Federation is headed by the Chief of Pakistan Air Force.

Asia Times Online asked Arif Ali Khan Abbassi, Pakistan's longest serving sports official, whether Khan should appeal to Musharraf over his dismissal. His answer was an emphatic "no".

"It is the country and its people who should request a legend to serve the nation, it should not be the other way around. It is shameful that we have forced him to think of leaving the country."

Abbassi contents that it is a failure on the part of PIA not to be able to translate Khan's undoubted popularity and respect into something of value to them and the country. Khan is regularly invited to high-profile events in other countries, and last year he presented the prizes at the British Open squash championships.

Abbassi reveals that during one of his stints as general manager at PIA he planned to sent Khan to Brunei to help drum up support for the airline, but before anything could happen the military fired Abbassi. "Jehangir Khan is an institution. You can sack a person, but not an institution," Abbassi says.

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