Articles of the year 2014
Published on July 04th 2014
Watching the World Cup matches, I marvelled at the nationalism projected by the spectators at every match. The enthusiasm, the joy, the sorrow, all accurately following the progress of their team, from one end of the pitch to the other, and from one game to the next. Above all the happiness the joy at every goal, at every shot at goal, the fervour was always intense. We Pakistanis have been deprived of our chance at enjoyment of live sports, by combination of buffoons who were elevated by our incompetent rulers, and thus with a tragedy of errors, removed visiting teams from playing in Pakistan, leaving our stadiums empty.
The responsibility of the Provincial Government of the Punjab for the negligence in preventing the attack on th Sri Lankan team, was criminal. There was no security on the route, nor around the visitor’s hotel.This was a serious lapse on behalf of the Chairman PCB Ijaz Butt who further compounded his negligence, by his stupid remarks at the Match referee Chris Broad. Who had been appointed by the ICC, and whose report was the basis of the actions of the ICC. The fact that Broad was called a liar by Ijaz Butt in a press statement, did not help Pakistan’s cause. It shows how stupid our PCB Chairman was, and the extent of damage he did to the millions of spectators that were denied a chance to witness and cheer for their team.
It is a pity that there is not a way for the accountability of Ijaz Butt for the damage to the game. In every other country games were organised to keep the public happy. In Roman days the gladiators were pitted against animals, and against each other in duels to the death. These games were primarily to keep the natives entertained. Even our neighbours India have their new IPL games with stadium full for all their matches. And they have a cinema industry churning out entertainment. In Pakistan we are so starved for entertainment that Hijras are doing much of, the entertaining. Yet in Pakistan we have numerous stadiums empty.
The one game – our national game-Cricket has been removed from Pakistan for the last 5 years, after the attack in 2009. All this has been achieved under our so called democrats, with their incredible incompetence have robbed the poor of one of their few pleasures – Cricket. Six years have passed and this monstrous wrong has still not been righted. The youngsters would like to see their team play in a stadium to cheers and jeers in front of them. To be so deprived by duplicitous politicians whose chase for money derived from power, is near legendary. Allowing incompetent cricket chairmen has only exacerbated the problem. It was doing well till the politicians got hold of it. It is indeed a pity that people like Ijaz Butt have escaped punishment, for they have done our citizens more damage than any foreign enemy could. They should be publicly vilified for it is the public that has been denied their right–their right to enjoying entertainment that is clean, and free of any religious constraint.
It is small consolation that all the footballs used in the 2014 Brazil world cup have been manufactured in a factory in Sialkot, that had been inspected to ensure that it was free from child labour. It shows how hardworking and enterprising our smaller factory owners are. Especially when the previous footballs were varying in flight. The Pakistani footballs were true in their flight, and there have been no complaints. So kudos to Pakistan, but no thanks to the political leadership, that there has been no credit given to the manufacturer of these footballs.