Ex-Davis Cup captain, coach and former national champion Hameed Ul Haq has said that the nomination of Aisam Ul Haq Qureshi as PTF President will prove to be a case of conflict of interest.
”Recently the announcement regarding Aisam Ul Haq Qureshi running for the PTF President post has come to light. While it may seem that a tennis player could bring about change in Pakistani tennis, but in his case it may prove far from such an assumption,” said Hameed.
He added that Aisam has ACE academy to look after. Therefore, fulfilling the duties of president of the tennis federation would be problematic.
“I am afraid that all the budget, resources and energy of PTF will possibly be diverted to his ACE academy,” said Hameed.
Hameed, a recipient of the Presidential Pride of Performance award, said that during Aisam’s long stretching tennis career, he took an appearance fee of US $3000 per Davis Cup tie for his participation, including occasional business class tickets in case a tie is held abroad for the last 2 decades.
This has always forced the PTF management to spend almost half of their budget on Aisam and another player, he added.
“If under some circumstances he is elected the President, he will be presenting a budget to fill his own pockets in terms of appearance fee which will prove to be a big joke,” said Hameed.
He revealed that Aisam always forced PTF to nominate him as captain, coach and manager in Davis Cup ties in addition to selecting team members himself while also competing as a player.
For example, he added, in the Davis Cup tie against Lithuania, Aisam took a junior player with him on PTF expenses just because that junior player was getting trained in his ACE academy.
“Never in the world has a player been taken for a Davis Cup tie without trials but Aisam forced PTF management to ensure this non-merit selection in the official team.
“Similarly, he forced PTF to send his personal masseur to Austria for the Davis Cup tie on PTF expenses although an official ITF masseur was always present at the host venue,” said Hameed.
This arrangement, he added, cost PTF around Rs3 million and the result was ugly defeats against both Lithuania and Austria.
He added that Aisam participated in the recent Asian Games but he did not play the singles and denied opportunity to current Pakistan No 1 Muhammad Shoaib.
Besides, he added, Aisam’s uncle being the SVP PTF requested PTF to support the ACE academy in the recent AGM meeting in spite of the fact that the actual agenda was NTC and creation of new talent by the PTF but the SVP had his nephew’s personal business on his agenda.
Hameed requested all the affiliated units of PTF to keep in view all these facts before voting for any individual who would steer the future of Pakistan tennis as President PTF.
