KARACHI: Former head of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has expressed his determination to raise the issue of political interference in sports at international forums. His comments came after top-level change in PCB administration on December 21, when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif nominated a 14-member management committee headed by Najam Sethi to run the PCB affairs till the elections are held within the next four months.
In a video shared on Youtube channel in which he responded to questions from the public, Raja said there should be “no involvement of politics in cricket”. He slammed what he called “political interference” by amending the cricket board’s constitution to accommodate himself incumbent chairman Najam Sethi and “his thugs”.
Ramiz Raja said cricket was a game for cricketers and was their playing field, adding that people from outside should not be brought in who “come and attack and think the work you are doing is not right”.
“You changed the entire [PCB] Constitution to bring in one person, Najam Sethi, and to adjust him. I’ve never seen this anywhere else in the world.”
He said there was a way to such processes and lamented that the change — along with the change of the chief selector — was done in the middle of the cricketing season when teams were coming to play.
“You bid farewell to people with respect. He (Sethi) was tweeting at 2:15am that Ramiz Raja is out and people should congratulate him.”
“So you are hurt because it seems as if a messiah has come who will take cricket to great heights, although, we know that their motives are different,” he said.
“This notion is not even present that they’ve come for the development and advancement of cricket. They’ve come for lordship and they enjoy getting the limelight somehow.
“Nothing to do with cricket and they’ve never picked up a bat and then they’re appointed as the chairman,” Raja said.
He pointed out that he was given the PCB chairman’s charge for three years but was “sidelined” after a mere 12 months because of “political interference and a political appointment”.
“Our cricket will be destroyed this way because when there is no continuity and people are brought in like this through backdoor [means] then what will be your level?”
He said such appointments created pressure on the entire cricketing structure from top to bottom.
“Only in Pakistan, this can happen that you change the constitution to adjust a person or to bring in his thugs.”
