Pakistan’s Sports System in Crisis: Departments Decline, Franchises Rise, But Who Is Developing the Athlete?

 

Musarrat Ullah Jan , kikxnow , Digital Creator

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s sports system is increasingly operating without a clear and sustainable pathway for developing athletes, as the traditional departmental model continues to weaken while franchise-based competitions expand, raising serious questions about who is actually responsible for producing the country’s next generation of athletes.

Since independence, Pakistan has relied on a combination of departmental teams, provincial and regional structures, community clubs and academies. More recently, commercial franchise leagues have become another major component of the sporting landscape.

But instead of functioning as connected stages of one national system, these models largely operate in isolation.

The result is a sporting structure in which Pakistan can produce individual champions and host major international events, yet struggles to consistently develop talent from the grassroots to the international level.

For decades, departmental sports provided Pakistani athletes with something that the present system increasingly fails to guarantee: a sporting career combined with employment security.

Institutions including Pakistan International Airlines, WAPDA and the armed forces employed athletes and maintained teams in major sports.

From the 1960s through the 1990s, the model played a significant role in cricket, hockey, athletics, football and other disciplines.

For many athletes, joining a department meant access to training, competition and a regular salary.

But the gradual reduction of departmental teams has created a major gap.

The critical question now is:

When a department stops supporting a sport, who takes responsibility for the athlete?

Provincial and regional teams continue to represent areas such as Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and Karachi.

However, provincial representation alone cannot solve Pakistan’s talent-development problem.

A provincial team needs a functioning pipeline beneath it.

That means active school competitions, college sport, district tournaments, registered clubs, qualified coaches and regular talent identification.

Without those structures, provincial teams are effectively searching for talent from an already limited pool.

Pakistan’s grassroots sporting culture has survived largely because of local clubs, academies, schools and communities rather than because of a consistently funded national development programme.

Football in Lyari is one example of how sporting talent can emerge despite limited institutional support.

Across the country, however, many clubs continue to struggle with inadequate grounds, old equipment, insufficient coaching and limited financial resources.

This creates a damaging cycle:

The athlete is expected to produce results, while the system fails to provide the conditions required to produce the athlete.

The rise of franchise-based leagues since the 2010s has changed the economics and visibility of Pakistani sport.

The Pakistan Super League has demonstrated how a commercially driven competition can attract sponsorship, media rights, investment and public attention.

But commercial success at the top of the pyramid does not automatically mean development at the bottom.

The uncomfortable question is:

How much of the money generated by professional leagues is being invested in identifying and developing young athletes at school, club and district level?

If the answer is little or unclear, then Pakistan risks creating a system that is commercially successful at the elite level but structurally weak at the grassroots.

Pakistan has hosted major international, continental and regional competitions in cricket, hockey, squash, kabaddi, wrestling, baseball and other sports.

The country has repeatedly demonstrated that it can organize major sporting events.

But hosting an event is not the same as building a sporting system.

A tournament can generate temporary investment in venues, security, logistics and promotion.

An athlete needs years of coaching, equipment, nutrition, medical support, competition and financial stability.

This raises another question:

After the closing ceremony, what remains for the next generation of athletes?

The Stadium Question Is Not Enough

Sports authorities frequently highlight stadium construction, renovation and the hosting of competitions as indicators of progress.

But a stadium alone does not produce athletes.

The real indicators should be:

How many children are playing regularly?

How many schools have functioning sports programmes?

How many districts conduct annual competitions?

How many clubs have qualified coaches?

How many athletes receive sports-science and medical support?

How many talented players are lost because they cannot afford to continue?

And most importantly:

How much of the sports budget actually reaches the athlete?

Pakistan’s sporting structure has another major weakness: fragmented responsibility.

Federal departments, provincial sports directorates, national federations, provincial associations, departments, clubs and franchise owners all have different roles.

But when an athlete fails because of inadequate facilities, poor coaching or lack of funding, responsibility often becomes unclear.

The athlete is blamed for poor performance.

The federation blames funding.

The department blames policy.

The government points towards budget constraints.

Meanwhile, the athlete is left without a clear development pathway.

Pakistan has repeatedly shown that exceptional talent exists.

The country has produced Olympic medallists, world champions, Asian champions and athletes who have competed successfully at the highest international level.

The problem is that these successes often appear as individual breakthroughs rather than the predictable outcome of a strong national development system.

That distinction matters.

A successful sporting nation does not wait for an exceptional athlete to emerge.

It builds a system capable of producing exceptional athletes repeatedly.

Pakistan does not necessarily need another sports model.

It needs to connect the models that already exist.

The pathway should be clear:

School → Club → District → Province/Region → Department or Franchise → National Team → International Competition.

Each stage should have clearly defined responsibilities, funding mechanisms, performance indicators and accountability.

If departmental sports are being reduced, alternative career pathways must be created.

If franchise sports are expanding, grassroots investment should be built into the commercial model.

If provincial teams are being funded, they should be linked to district and school competitions.

If clubs are considered the foundation of sport, they must receive meaningful support rather than simply being registered on paper.

Pakistan has the athletes.

Pakistan has the sporting history.

Pakistan has hosted major international events.

Pakistan has government sports departments, national federations, provincial associations, departmental teams, clubs, academies and franchise leagues.

Yet the country continues to struggle to maintain a consistent pipeline of international-quality athletes across multiple sports.

That leaves one unavoidable question:

If all these institutions exist, where exactly is the failure occurring?

Until Pakistan answers that question honestly, changes in policy, new stadiums and occasional international victories will not solve the deeper problem.

Pakistan’s sports crisis is not a shortage of talent. It is a failure to build, maintain and hold accountable a system capable of turning talent into sustained sporting success.

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