The death of great hockey goalkeeper Mansoor Ahmad last week was distressing. But as it happens in our country, on such occasions the government and political parties make some important decisions, which they may not on ordinary days. Mansoor’s death due to a serious illness forced the federal sports ministry to introduce a policy to provide insurance covers to all recognised sportspersons of the country.

Though it is a good step, but the timing of the decision may create hurdles. With general elections around the corner and in case of a change of government, the new one may not give any consideration to this initiative.

There is a need that the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB), which is also part of this decision, keeps the issue alive even after the general elections to get it implemented by the next government. There are hundreds of examples where even medal winners for Pakistan lived in miserable conditions and are struggling to make ends meet.

According to the decision, a detailed policy for providing insurance cover to elite sportspersons would come to the fore in the next three months. Hopefully, the policy will provide the best of healthcare and take best care of their families in case of their death.

The PSB has also named one of the grounds of its Naseer Bunda Hockey Stadium after Mansoor Ahmad, who was a hero of Pakistan hockey team and instrumental in the country winning the 1994 World Cup in Sydney by saving a penalty stroke.

Though the Pakistan Hockey Federation and the sports ministry announced financial grants for his treatment, but that was not enough and Mansoor appealed to the Indian government for making arrangements for his treatment as it had better facilities to treat his diseases. The doctors treating Mansoor in Karachi were also not ready to give him permission to travel as it could have proved fatal.

The Model Town Football Academy last week returned home after a 10-day tour of Mauritius where its veterans’ team played three matches against its local counterpart. Each team faced one win and a defeat while the third match ended in a draw. The mentor of the Model Town Academy, Mian Rizwan, said the tour was arranged by the government. He said the president, prime minister and sports minister of Mauritius had invited the academy and offered it warm hospitality.

Rizwan said they had invited the Mauritius academy to visit Pakistan to play three matches, one each in Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi in August-September this year. He said football was the only popular game in Mauritius and the people there were amazed to know that the game was also popular in Pakistan.

Lahore division’s boxers dominated last week’s Punjab Open Inter-Division Boxing Championship. Around 300 male and 100 female boxers from all nine divisions of the province took part in the sports gala held by the Sports Board Punjab.

Lahore won 16 gold medals, while Faisalabad and Dera Ghazi Khan remained second and third.

From Lahore, Rabia Basri, Tahira Warsi, Arzoo Ashraf, Hamza Sikandar, Zain Rafiq, Hashim, Ibrar Ahmed, Mudassir Khan, Yousaf Ali, Muhammad Arsalan, Muhammad Suleman and Faisal Shafiq all won gold medals. Cash prizes of Rs 2.6 million were distributed among the winners.

Although boxing is a popular game in the country, Punjab lags behind in it as boxers from Sindh and Balochistan are expressing more interest in pursuing the game. But this event, hopefully, will create interest among the youth. The Sports Board Punjab should organise such events for other games as well.

With the start of the holy month of Ramazan, sports activities in Lahore have almost ended. However, a few organisers are planning to hold some sports events at nights. Dar Hockey Academy is one of them that plans to organise a tournament at the newly established ground of National Hockey Stadium with the facility of floodlights also available there.

Contrary to the situation in Karachi, sports activities in Lahore are not common in Ramazan. The port city has good cricketing infrastructure with almost five big grounds having the facility of floodlights. While in Lahore there’s hardly any ground where cricket matches are possible at night.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2018