KARACHI, Jan 7: In a bid to resolve the long-standing row of players’ contracts, the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) on Wednesday finally signed a central contract with a group of agitating players who boycotted a national ranking event in Islamabad last year for want of jobs and raise in perks.

“All the ten players who skipped the Islamabad event have signed a central contract that was offered to them by the PBSA and will come into force soon after the 34th National Snooker Championship to be held here next month,” the PBSA president Alamgir Shaikh told Dawn from Lahore.

The contract which puts an additional annual burden of Rs0.8 million on the games controlling body is part of the proposed Rs5 million budget submitted to the sports ministry by the cash starved PBSA recently.

Under the contract, the winner of the forthcoming National’s will be entitled to get Rs8,000, runner up Rs7,000 and the following six players Rs5,000 apiece monthly until the next ranking.

“The players who will fall among top eight in the second ranking will be offered the same slab until another ranking and so on,” the PBSA president added.

Describing the demands of rebels as genuine, he said: “Their other problems are also looked into”.

Held in the presence of officials of Punjab Snooker Association, he termed the meeting with players as ‘fruitful’ and hoped their return to the fold will raise level of competition at domestic level.

Earlier, Alamgir travelled to Islamabad where he met Minister of Sports Pir Aftab Shah Jilani and apprised him to release a pending grant of Rs2,50,000 and another Rs3,75,000 promised by him (minister) for the national championship.

The players who boycotted the national ranking event and signed central contract include Shahram Changezi, Mohammad Sajjad, Imtiaz Sarwer, Imran Shahzad, Raees Aslam, Atif Mughal, Sohail Shahzad, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Asif Toba and Qadeer Butt.