The Great Peshawar Sports Turf War: Two Masters, No Results, and Players Stuck in the Middle

 

Musarrat Ullah Jan – KikxNow , Digital Creator

If anyone wants to study how sports should not be managed, come to Peshawar. Here, you will find a live demonstration as to how two institutions can fight over a piece of land for years, invest millions in salaries, and still fail to produce even a handful of decent athletes.

Welcome to the ongoing drama between the Pakistan Sports Board and Coaching Centre Peshawar, and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sports Directorate.

Three days ago, the KP Sports Directorate decided to take matters into its own hands. Without any grand ceremony, they walked up to the main gate of the PSB Coaching Centre and simply locked it. No warning. No explanation. Just a cold metal lock swinging from the gate like a punchline. By evening, the Directorate also announced that the entire compound now fell under provincial jurisdiction. One gate, two owners, and an entire city confused about who is actually in control.

Inside the building, the PSB employees continued working for the federal government as if nothing had happened. Their combined monthly salaries are around twenty-two lakh rupees. Add maintenance costs, electricity bills, office upkeep, security and other expenses, and you start to wonder what exactly the federal government is paying for, because sports development is not visible anywhere.

To make the story even stranger, the table tennis hall — which PSB had handed over quietly to a private individual to run as a gym — remained open. Only one side had a decorative lock attached, probably for drama, while the real business carried on smoothly. Meanwhile, the door between PSB and the KP Directorate was unlocked altogether, and now even ordinary visitors can stroll through freely. This is amusing, because for years the PSB didn’t even allow players inside without charges, let alone the general public.

This takeover was approved by the KP cabinet. After the 18th Amendment, sports are a provincial subject anyway, so technically the PSB's role had already shrunk. But institutions in Pakistan seldom step aside unless someone physically moves them. This time, the Directorate didn't ask twice.

For years, PSB Peshawar Centre treated players less like athletes and more a source of income. The registration fee, monthly fee, and random charges of seven thousand rupees here and two thousand rupees there were in place. It even banned entry without charges for indoor volleyball and badminton games. In fact, the whole set-up looked less like a public sports centre and more like a private club pretending to be official.

And players protested time and again. The volleyball players even held a demonstration. The result? Instead of listening, the PSB simply kept parroting the same lines: pay the fee, then enter. No fee, no sports. Eventually most athletes shifted to the KP Sports Directorate, where at least the monthly charges were within their means. Fifteen hundred rupees for volleyball might not be cheap, but it was definitely less painful than what the PSB was asking for.

Then there were the special cases. Squash was shut down for months, then opened again. The judo hall remained closed completely. Table tennis players were kicked out so that the hall could be turned into the private gym we now hear about. Yet the federal institution insisted they were there to “promote sports”.

 

If promoting sports means closing the gates on the players, asking for money every month, banning activities, shutting down halls, and giving out facilities on rent, then the PSB certainly excelled. Otherwise, their performance in the last five years was close to zero. Not a single player of repute came out of the centre. Not a single major tournament. Not even a partnership with local associations. But the expenses continued like clockwork.

Now, let's talk about attitude: many PSB officers treated the players as if they were emperors. The squash players often complained that they weren't allowed in unless they paid their way in. It was less of a training center and more of a checkpoint. But the funniest twist came afterwards-when some of these officers retired. These same “strict men of principle” then walked straight toward the KP Sports Directorate seeking coaching jobs and free practice space. The same players they once blocked now watched them show up with smiles and requests.

The athletes remembered everything, and they pushed back. They didn't want the person who used to treat them like labor without pay to now become their coach. This chapter alone could have been turned into a full comedy play.

Historically, the land itself has been through many transformations. It once served as a dairy farm. The boundaries stretched all the way to the railway track near the current Government Higher Secondary School in Gulberg. Over time, pieces of land were given to the school and the remaining area was leased to the Pakistan Sports Board. The provincial government kept renewing the lease for the Directorate, but the federal side maintained a casual attitude, a kind of “we’ll see tomorrow” approach that has now caught up with them.

The result? One lock from the provincial side has thrown the entire federal operation into confusion. The employees earning twenty-two lakh rupees every month are now facing an uncertain future because the centre they worked in did not produce sports, only bills.

The Directorate, despite its own shortage of resources, has at least managed to train and produce players who represented at national and provincial levels. Their fees are lower, their access rules simpler, and their approach more sports-oriented than money-oriented. That does not mean the KP system is perfect; it has problems of its own. But at least the players are made to feel welcome.

On the other hand, the PSB became so consumed with collecting fees that the original purpose — athlete development — disappeared completely. Ask anyone who visited the PSB hall in the last five years, and they’ll tell you the same thing: you could sit there the whole day and never see a single serious training session.

And yet, despite all this, the PSB has yet to say a word. No press release, no explanation-no defensive comment, even. They haven't called the Directorate, either. Workers just repeat the same two sentences: First, "This land belongs to us; the province has no right here." Second, "Our lease is still in process."

In plain words, they are hoping that tomorrow would come and magically fix everything, which is precisely the strategy that got them there.

Now, those who termed this takeover as a “good step” are partly right. At least, someone shook the dust off this place. However, from a player's perspective, not much has changed yet. They still do not know what the new rules will be, who manages the halls, and what the future structure would look like. The one thing certain is that the KP Directorate has been forced to take extra security duties again, and that drains its already-thin budget.

The land is now practically divided into two mini-kingdoms. One was running on routine, paperwork, and high salaries. The other is trying to run the show with limited resources. The players once again are standing in the middle, wondering why every conflict in Pakistan is destined to land on their shoulders. This whole turf war exposes how sports is treated here: not as a national need, not as a youth priority, not even as a community service.

 Just land, power, funds, and personal interests. The saddest truth is that even after this noisy takeover, the biggest question still remains: When can the players finally get what they deserve? Because there are gates that can be locked or unlocked, institutions can switch boards and officials can argue for years — but until the actual athlete benefits, everything else is just another episode in Pakistan’s long-running administrative comedy.

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