KARACHI - Instead of ruing on poor performance of Pakistan at London 2012 Olympics, a senior former international athlete has advised the sports organisers of the country to start concentrating without losing time on reviving the old tradition of promoting sports at club, school, college and university levels which were proven nurseries of talent.
Talking to TheNation here on Friday, former international hurdler M Talib said once again like in the past he was hearing voices advising holding of seminars and discussions to find out the causes behind poor performance of Pakistan particularly in hockey at the Olympics. This exercise, he said, had been repeated for the last 64 years without any result.
The organisers were fully aware that the sports in the country had taken a nosedive after it neglected its nurseries which existed in forms of the clubs and in educational institutions which were the breeding grounds of the talented players and attracting youngsters to sports.
He said budding sportsmen should be made aware that money would come to them if they perform at regional, national and international level. Demanding money without any performances would be like putting the cart before the horse, he said.
They should also be told that there was no substitute for hard work if they wanted to reach recognised standards in sport.
There was no need to go into the futile exercise of going through the time wasting postmortem of poor performance. Everyone knows what was wrong with Pakistan sports. It was just neglecting basic nurseries of sports which attract when the boys and girl were young and make them aware of sports which they could take up when they grow older.
Over the years various clubs and educational institutions which had thrown up fresh and promising talent were neglected by provincial, national federations and the government which resulted in drying up of the talent.
In the past, there were individuals and institutions which promoted sports at grass root level. During the past two decades, suddenly making money through sports has taken upper most importance for the organisers.
The new trend of sponsorship has brought money in the sports but less for the sportsmen and more for the organisers. Most of the sponsorship money is soaked up before it reaches the hands of talented players.
However when the sponsorship was handled by national federations like cricket and hockey, the money to a great extent was properly utilized and it reaches eight persons otherwise sponsorship taken through personal persuasions and efforts only fattens the purses of the organisers.
He said there were school, college and university sports boards with unlimited funds but unfortunately due to negligence from the high ups of those boards either the money was wasted or activities were held in such a manner where the end result is nothing. The HEC has good funds but the way it spend funds and varsity sports were organisers it produces no result.
Pakistan could in due course of time raise its sporting standards under the existing set up but with better monitoring and accountability of those involved in the administration of sports, he concluded.