PSB’s Tenure Rule: A Reform on Paper, But Where Is the Enforcement?

 

Musarrat Ullah Jan , KikxNow , Digital Creator

Two terms, eight years, and then what? Pakistan Sports Board has changed the rules. Now it must show the public who is actually complying.

Pakistan Sports Board has taken a clear position on one of the oldest governance problems in Pakistan’s national sports federations: the concentration of power in the hands of individuals who continue to influence federations even after completing their permitted terms.

In its February 2026 notification amending Rule 3(6) of the National Sports Federations (Tenure) Rules 2025, PSB stated that the President shall be the highest administrative and operational authority of a federation.

Chairman, Patron-in-Chief, Patron, CEO or any equivalent position, according to the amended rule, must remain ceremonial and cannot exercise administrative, financial, operational or influential authority.

The rule is clear.

But the bigger question is equally clear:

What has PSB actually done to enforce it?

PSB itself identified the problem. Its explanation says that in several cases, office-bearers who had completed two four-year terms as President continued to exercise administrative influence by taking positions such as Chairman, Patron-in-Chief, Patron or CEO.

In other words, the Board was not addressing an imaginary loophole. It was responding to a practice it had itself identified.

So the question now is not whether PSB can write rules.

The question is whether it can enforce them.

Where is the updated list?

If the reform is genuinely being implemented, PSB should be able to publish, in one place, an updated and verified list of office-bearers of every affiliated national sports federation.

That list should clearly identify:

·         President

·         Secretary General

·         Chairman

·         Patron

·         Patron-in-Chief

·         CEO

·         Other senior office-bearers

·         Their dates of election

·         Their previous positions

·         Their previous terms

·         The powers attached to each position

·         Whether the federation has amended its constitution

·         Whether the amended constitution has been submitted to PSB

·         Whether PSB has accepted the federation's compliance

PSB already maintains a public list of national sports federations and their contact details. Its website also publishes constitutions of national sports federations and maintains an Election Commission section containing election notifications and candidate/voter lists.

So there is no obvious reason why the public should have to piece together the governance structure of each federation from scattered documents.

Ninety days have already passed

The rules require national sports federations to bring their structures into conformity within 90 days of the notification. The February 6, 2026 notification also provides sanctions for violations, including possible suspension and withdrawal of funding or affiliation consequences for non-compliance.

That deadline has long passed.

Therefore, the obvious questions are:

How many federations submitted their amended constitutions?

How many were found compliant?

How many were asked to make further changes?

How many were issued notices?

How many were sanctioned?

How many former office-bearers were identified as continuing to exercise influence through alternative positions?

And most importantly:

Where is the public record of this enforcement?

Changing the title is not the same as changing the power

This is where the real governance test begins.

If someone completes two terms as President and subsequently becomes Chairman, Patron or CEO, the question cannot simply be whether the new title appears in the constitution.

The real question is:

Who controls the federation?

Who signs financial documents?

Who controls bank accounts?

Who approves expenditure?

Who influences team selection?

Who controls appointments?

Who calls meetings?

Who controls federation employees?

Who deals with government departments and international bodies?

Who decides how grants are spent?

Who exercises influence over elections?

If those powers remain effectively concentrated in the same individual, changing the title from President to Chairman or Patron does not necessarily solve the underlying governance problem.

That is precisely why PSB's amended Rule 3(6) refers not only to administrative and financial authority but also to an “influential role.”

The revolving-door problem

There is another issue that deserves serious scrutiny.

In some sports organisations, the concern is not simply that one person remains in one office for too long. It is that the same group of individuals can move between positions:

President → Secretary General → Chairman → Patron → another executive position → back into elected office.

If the same individuals continue to control the federation through different titles, then the formal rotation of office may not necessarily translate into genuine rotation of power.

That is why PSB needs to publish term histories, not merely current names.

A current office-bearer list tells the public who holds an office today.

A term-history database tells the public who has controlled a federation, in what position, and for how long.

Interestingly, the 2025 rules themselves require PSB to maintain a central database of office-bearers and their term history.

The obvious question is:

Where is that database?

What about relatives and internal networks?

There is another area that deserves examination: appointments and elections within federations.

If relatives, close associates or members of the same established group repeatedly occupy different positions within a federation, the issue should not be presented as corruption without evidence.

But it is absolutely legitimate to ask whether the federation's electoral and appointment system provides genuine competition, transparency and independent oversight.

The test should be documentary:

Who was elected?

Who nominated whom?

What was the electoral college?

Who were the candidates?

What were their previous positions?

How long had they already served?

What does the federation's constitution say?

And did PSB verify compliance?

PSB's own affiliation criteria already require a national federation's office-bearer tenure to conform with national sports policy, while also restricting simultaneous office-holding in multiple national federations, subject to the stated exception for the Pakistan Olympic Association.

PSB cannot stop at legislation

PSB describes itself as the country's authority responsible for regulating and controlling sports at the national level and says it monitors the affairs of affiliated national sports federations.

That makes enforcement particularly important.

Passing a tenure rule is the easy part.

Monitoring compliance is harder.

Investigating violations is harder still.

And publishing the results requires institutional transparency.

The public should therefore not be asked to simply trust that the new rules are being followed.

PSB should show the evidence.

The questions PSB should answer

1. How many national sports federations submitted amended constitutions within the 90-day deadline?

2. How many were approved as compliant?

3. How many were asked to amend their constitutions again?

4. How many notices were issued for violations of Rule 3(6)?

5. How many investigations were initiated?

6. Has any individual been sanctioned under the 2025 Tenure Rules?

7. How many individuals completed two presidential terms and subsequently occupied Chairman, Patron, Patron-in-Chief or CEO positions?

8. In how many cases did PSB determine that such a position was genuinely ceremonial?

9. Has PSB verified the actual financial and administrative powers exercised by these individuals?

10. When will PSB publish the promised central database of office-bearers and their term histories?

The bottom line

Pakistan's sports governance problem cannot be solved by changing titles on paper.

If a former President can no longer be President after completing the permitted terms, but can continue controlling the federation through another title, then the reform has simply moved the problem from one chair to another.

PSB has now written the rule.

It has defined the highest administrative authority.

It has declared alternative positions ceremonial.

It has established sanctions.

It has required federations to amend their constitutions.

Now comes the difficult part:

Enforcement.

The public does not need another notification.

It needs the names.

It needs the term histories.

It needs the amended constitutions.

It needs the compliance reports.

It needs to know which federations complied, which did not, and what action PSB took.

Because in sports governance, a rule that exists only on paper is not reform.

#PakistanSportsBoard #SportsGovernance #NationalSportsFederations #SportsReforms #SportsAccountability #SportsTransparency #TenureRules #PakistanSports #SportsFederations #GovernanceInSports #PSB #NationalSportsPolicy #SportsInvestigation