Jahangir lashes out at PSF for blaming world body

Karachi: Former Pakistan great and the emeritus president of World Squash Federation (WSF), Jahangir Khan, has criticised the sports` governing body in his country for blaming the world body over Pakistan`s withdrawal from the World Junior Championship.

Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) Secretary, Irfan Asghar, triggered a controversy after accusing WSF of delaying issuing visa letters to the Pakistan team for the World Championships in Belgium. Asghar made reference to the fact that the WSF was currently headed by an Indian and this was the reason for the inordinate delay in the issuance of visa letters to the PSF. The PSF official said that since Ramachandran was an Indian he didn`t want Pakistan to participate in the event."It is not Ramachandran`s job to delay or issue the documents for the participating junior players," said Jahangir. The former world no 1 added that WSF headquarters are in United Kingdom, which employs local staff who process and respond to such routine affairs. "PSF is just blaming others for their own short-comings. The WSF have got nothing to do with this. PSF didn`t send the visa applications on time. They are well aware that any European country takes at least a month to issue visas.” "The PSF president, who also happens to be an air chief marshal, could have easily resolved the issue. All he had to do was call the Belgian embassy. Blaming Ramachandran for Pakistan`s withdrawal is wrong," Jahangir stressed.PSF claims that it confirmed its squad and sent the list to the WSF by May 30th but WSF didn`t issue visa letters until June 30th and this led to the Belgium embassy saying they didn`t have enough time to process the Pakistani visa applications. Pakistan`s Danish Atlas and Nasir Iqbal were seeded third and fourth respectively at the championship featuring 15 other countries. PTI