Pakistan sports scandal: Missing athletes and systemic mismanagement

Dubai: At the recently concluded FISU World University Games 2025 in Germany, two Pakistani athletes reportedly vanished just days before the event ended.

Their passports remained with team management, while German authorities launched a search.

It is not the first time that Pakistani athletes go missing during foreign international trips. Just last year, boxer Zohaib Rasheed disappeared during a boxing tour in Italy. In 2022, Suleman Baloch and Nazeerullah, two other boxers, slipped away during the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. These are not isolated incidents as there are countless cases of missing officials and athletes who go as part of sport team delegation and never come back to Pakistan.

Disturbing trend

They are part of a disturbing trend of human smuggling via sports delegations. The country has been facing this issue due to some unscrupulous sports managers who include ‘fake’ officials and ‘unqualified’ athletes in the teams to help the leave the country. Majority of such ‘missing’ cases are also not reported. Several such disappearances also point to athletes seeking better opportunities abroad.

Sports board action

The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) has now formed an inquiry committee to investigate the FISU debacle, citing “significant administrative failures” and “lack of transparency” in the selection of athletes and officials. There were many concerns highlighted during the FISY World University Games. A judo athlete was sent to compete without a coach or even a proper uniform, while the women’s 4x400m relay team was disqualified due to disorganisation. Only one actual coach accompanied the contingent; the rest were officials from the Higher Education Commission (HEC) or its affiliated universities. This mismanagement and favouritism is destroying the future of Pakistani sports.

Athletes left behind

While officials travel in comfort on taxpayer money, Pakistani athletes are often paid little or not paid at all. Many struggle to afford basic training equipment and facilities, let alone international travel. Even national champions are forced to fund their own journeys, with no guarantees of proper accommodation, nutrition, or medical support. They return home, not to celebration, but to debt.

Talented young Pakistanis with dreams of representing their country are being suffocated by a system that rewards connections over capability, loyalty over merit, and silence over accountability. Genuine athletes are sidelined in favour of those with the right contacts or the willingness to play by the federation’s shady rules.

Mafias in sports federations

The federations that run sports in Pakistan are often dominated by entrenched power blocs, functioning more like political mafias than merit-based institutions. These groups use sports for personal gain whether to curry political favour, making money or smuggle people abroad. They are answerable to no one and are rarely held accountable, even after public failures. They send unprepared teams to global events, and they lose matches before they begin.

What needs to change

If Pakistan is to restore any credibility on the international sports stage, the country must move beyond inquiry committees and strongly worded press releases. Country needs independent oversight of all sports federations, strict penalties for human smuggling and administrative negligence, transparent, merit-based athlete and official selection processes, adequate pay and support for athletes at every level, and investment in infrastructure and long-term youth development.

Pakistan has no shortage of talent as young athletes continue to dream big despite the odds. But their dreams will keep turning into nightmares until the authorities concerned address the rot at the heart of sports institutions.