Irfan Asghar, the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) secretary, told Arab News on Tuesday that a delay by the World Squash Federation (WSF) in sending visa letters to Pakistan was the prime reason why the Belgian Embassy in Islamabad refused to issue visas to Pakistani players.

Pakistan, the most successful nation in the history of the sport, was forced to withdraw from the championship because of the visa problem.

Irfan made a stunning allegation when he went on to add that the delay could have occurred because the “WSF president happens to be an Indian.” “I must say that it was because the organizers of the World Junior Championships and the WSF that our players have been deprived of their right to play in event,” said Irfan.

“We had selected our team for the World Junior Championships on May 30 but in spite of our repeated reminders, we only received visa letters from them on June 30. By then it was too late and finally we were told that our players would get visas to play in Belgium,” he claimed.

“We don’t know why they didn’t send us the letters earlier,” he said. “But we have our suspicions. The fact that the WSF has an Indian president could have been a reason behind it, who knows,” added the PSF secretary referring to N. Ramachandran, the WSF chief from India.

Ramachandran is a prominent Chennai-based businessman who succeeded Pakistan’s Jahangir Khan as the WSF president a couple of years back.

Pakistan were looking to regain the world junior title for the first time since Jansher Khan won it back in 1986. Danish Atlas, who won the Asian junior title, recently, was their prime hope for top honors in the World Junior Championships to be played at the Flemish Squash Center in Herentals (Belgium) from 13-17 July.

Upset over the setback, Pakistan have fired a protest letter to the WSF and are now planning to raise the issue at the world governing body’s annual general meeting to be held in November.

“We have already lodged our protest by sending an email to the WSF today,” said Irfan. “We have protested against the delay in getting visa letters. We have written that as a country with enormous contribution toward the game, Pakistan has been treated unfairly.” Giving more details, Irfan said that the PSF had to send two reminders for visa letters on June 24 and June 29 before finally receiving the required document for their players’ visa applications.

“The PSF tried its best to obtain visas for our team,” he stressed. “It is really disappointing that our players will have to stay away from the World Junior Championships especially because we believed that a couple of them had realistic chances of winning the title this year.” The Pakistanis would have provided the two 3/4 seeds had they been playing in the event. Danish Atlas Khan and Nasir Iqbal, both 17-year-olds from Peshawar, were supposed to lead Pakistan’s title campaign in Belgium.

While the PSF is claiming that it left no stone unturned in its bid to get visas for the national junior team, well-placed sources told Arab News that the federation could also be blamed for the fiasco.

“PSF should have been aware that these days Western embassies take several weeks to issue visas to Pakistani nationals. Why did the federation wait till June 24 before sending a reminder to the concerned authorities? It should have done that much earlier,” said a national player, who requested anonymity.