Beyond the Mat: Pakistan Wrestling's Funding Trap

Inayatullah, Abdullah and Mohammad Gulzar. In the files of the Pakistan Wrestling Federation, these three names sit beside a budget request of 30 million rupees. On the line directly below is another figure: zero. Last year the Pakistan Sports Board gave wrestling 3 million rupees; this year it gave not a single paisa. And preparation for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic qualification should be starting right now. For athletes who need speed and quick feet on the mat, survival depends on fighting in mud—kushti, or pehlwani. The entire crisis of Pakistani wrestling is folded into that one sentence. For years I have walked both the mat and the mud pit of South Asian wrestling. One truth kept surfacing: the wrestlers here are effectively playing two different sports under a single name. Whether it is the old Bengali boli khela or Punjab's pehlwani, the roots lie in the same soil. Olympic wrestling, though, grew up inside a completely different architecture. The old akharas were institutions in themselves—guru, disciple, discipline and long training, a complete system. That system was never wired into the Olympic qualification machine. Federations were built, the akharas survived, and no bridge was ever laid between them. Mohammad Inam, secretary of the Pakistan Wrestling Federation, was himself once a beach wrestling world champion. A former athlete running the administration is a good sign. But the paperwork tells a more complicated story. Olympic wrestling is governed by United World Wrestling (UWW). Its qualification route runs through multiple gates—the World Championships, the rankings series, continental championships, and separate Olympic qualification tournaments. Every gate demands international appearances, and every appearance demands money. No money means no ranking points; no points means no Olympic quota. On paper the system is meritocratic; in practice it is wealth-gated. Federations that can send athletes abroad again and again are the ones that bank points. Pakistan has stood outside that list for decades—a long Olympic drought. Look at the financial picture. Until last year there was 3 million rupees in hand, which went toward the rankings series and the Asian and World Championships. This year that 3 million has fallen to zero, and the preparation calendar has collapsed with it. The PSB funded only two of the five members of the Asian Games squad. The athletes' departments also declined to help. Another blow has arrived from outside. Wrestling has been dropped from the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games. It was there in Birmingham 2026, and medals came with it. That platform is now gone, closing yet another door in an already thin list of international opportunities. Now the real point. This is not a talent crisis; it is a gatekeeping crisis. The federation has identified the athletes, it knows the pathway, but the resources will not unlock. Inam himself has said the country is already late. Inside that phrase lies a larger truth: there is no multi-year, periodised training calendar here. The programme is reactive, not proactive. The biggest technical trap lies in the difference between mud and mat. These two forms of wrestling build two different physical demands. Mud fighting rewards patience, stamina and long grappling exchanges. The Olympic mat wants the opposite—explosive speed, fast feet, split-second decisions. Wrestlers who climb into the mud to earn a living slowly have their bodies bend to the mud's rhythm. Then, standing on the mat, their feet feel heavy. That is the cruellest trap: the same trade feeds them and damages them. What Inam calls the biggest hurdle is not an individual weakness but a systemic disease. A six-month foreign camp was proposed, but the cost could not be met. Talks were underway with Kyrgyzstan—the hosts would provide facilities, and Pakistan would cover only travel and lodging. Even so, airfare and accommodation bills stalled the negotiation. The IOC scholarship exists precisely for situations like this—for athletes from under-resourced federations. In the current cycle, no Pakistani wrestler received one. The external safety net has vanished too. The money itself is worth noting. Thirty million rupees is about one hundred and seven thousand US dollars. For only three athletes, that is roughly thirty-six thousand dollars each. Once coaching, travel, lodging and equipment are counted, it is not a huge sum. The real problem is not the size of the figure but the road to reaching it. The federation's own file says it plainly: without major international medals, attracting sponsors remains difficult. That is the trap: no medals, so no sponsors; no sponsors, so no preparation; no preparation, so no medals. Breaking the loop requires outside intervention—the state, or the IOC. Now the part where we step away from the conventional story. “Huge talent in Pakistani wrestling”—that claim is not in the record. The evidence offered for it is Commonwealth Games medals. But the Commonwealth and the Olympics are not the same stage. A medal at a regional event is not proof of world standard. My own notebook holds many such calculations. The gap between a regional medal and world standard is one I have seen across other South Asian sports. Bangladesh's karate won four golds at home in Dhaka in 2026; fifteen years later there is still no professional pathway. Pakistani wrestling sits in the same mould. A Commonwealth medal here is consolation, not proof. There is another thing—the federation's appeal is written in the language of rescue. But what is needed is not a one-off grant; it is a year-round plan. Pouring in money alone will not close the distance between mud and mat. Training rhythm, a competition calendar and time in the athlete's hands—those three are the real investment. I remember a time when, writing about wrestling, I would notice that the gurus of the old akharas memorised their students' names, yet no federation file ever contained them. Pakistan's three wrestlers are caught in the same trap today—their names exist on federation paper, but not in any durable structure. Generation after generation, the current of South Asian wrestling has flowed through that namelessness. The qualification clock is the binding pressure. The process formally opens in February 2027. Which means what is happening now is pre-qualification preparation—and that is exactly what is unfunded. What to track: whether the PSB releases all or part of the 30 million rupees; whether the Kyrgyzstan camp dates are confirmed; whether any Pakistani wrestler receives an IOC scholarship; and whether Pakistan's name appears in the 2027 rankings series. The answers to those four questions will decide whether Pakistan's wrestlers can step onto the mat in Los Angeles—or whether another generation ends in the mud pit.