Lahore - International badminton coach Raziuddin Ahmad has called for a stern action plan to be put in place well before the Asian Games 2023, which will take place in Hangzhou, China from September 23, 2023. In an interview with The Nation, Razi emphasized the need for only fit players to participate in the games, in order to avoid blame-game upon their return. Razi revealed that currently, 80% of the top national players in different games have undergone knee, ankle, elbow surgery damaging their ACL and tendons. Hence, he suggested that fitness inspection must be included in the criteria for player selection to ensure that only those players who meet international standards are selected.
According to Razi, both the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) and the National Sports Federations (NSFs) are incompetent in managing effective international participation, and they always send ordinary level players who are not trained at international standards. Consequently, the country always returns without medals from such highlevel events. The international said: “The NSFs are at dearth with unqualified coaching staff and assign coaching responsibilities to their favorites, leading to poor infrastructure and nonprofessionalism.
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The PSB doesn’t have the required operative planning for a ‘progressive development of an athlete’ and always neglects that every player has his/her peak performance time, which can only be achieved via systematic training.” When asked about the lack of interest from sponsors to promote sports other than cricket, Razi denied it, saying the NSFs have lost their trust in sponsors through their habitual malpractice. He suggested that they need to work for national interests and avoid drawingroom elections. Razi emphasized the need for transparent accountability in the use of funds by the PSB, provincial sports boards, and the government itself, which has a lot of sources to provide well-sufficient funds for sports. But, unfortunately, no one seems to be interested in it, which is a great dilemma,” Razi concluded.