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THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
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A BITTER LEARNING OPPORTUNITY
Rashid LatifNovember 2, 2025
At the centre of the storm: Multan Sultans’ owner Ali Tareen
After last week’s Pakistan Super League (PSL) soap opera, we now enter what could be a decisive week — one that will shape the league’s future and the financial health of Pakistan cricket.
The outcome will determine whether Multan Sultans’ contract, the PSL’s most expensive franchise, is terminated or extended. The Sultans have contributed approximately 7.2 billion rupees to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in over seven years and given Southern Punjab a much-needed sense of belonging in the Pakistan cricket ecosystem.
Either way, the PSL should never have reached a point where its supporters are left guessing about the future of one of its teams. The other five franchises, regarded as the “well-behaved” ones, are all set to receive new 10-year contracts.
The PSL — a league that helped revive international cricket in Pakistan in 2019 and is proudly branded as the country’s own — deserves better. Instead of trading barbs and leaking stories last week, both sides could have used the time to plan for next year’s event, particularly to re-engage Karachi crowds that stayed away this season and to develop fresh and creative ideas that could reignite global interest, attract players and engage fans.
Unfortunately, recent PCB decisions and priorities often defy logic. A new ODI captain was announced during a Test match day’s play. Babar Azam was recalled to the T20I squad without any T20 performance since his dropping, before the start of a crucial fourth day’s play. And shortly after an eight-wicket Test defeat, the captain was suddenly appointed ‘Consultant International Cricket and Player Affairs.’
And the craziest part? Fans — whom previous PCB administrations proudly called “the biggest and most valuable stakeholders” — still don’t know the reasoning behind any of these moves. Has accountability, once a cornerstone of cricket governance, quietly vanished?
Returning to the PSL, which is headed by chief executive Salman Naseer, the question is how and why the PCB finds itself serving a legal notice to its biggest investor. This happened nearly five months after the event in 2025 concluded on May 19, and the half-baked stories only surfaced last week, five weeks after the notice had been issued. The situation was sensationalised as a suspension or termination when, in fact, neither has yet occurred.
Having dealt with cricket administrations during turbulent times, I’m clear on one thing: this crisis is a result of a massive clash of egos, and a failure of partnership and process by both sides.
This crisis began last year when Multan Sultans’ owner Ali Tareen made sarcastic and critical social media comments about the league’s management and delivery. While his comments may have reflected legitimate frustrations shared by many observers and were widely reported, they also breached the expected commercial decorum between business partners.
The real question is what the PSL management did to defuse the situation. Their response — privately circulating misleading information instead of direct or indirect engagement with Multan Sultans — was unprofessional. Instead of introspection, they sought scapegoats and resorted to blame games.
In doing so, the PSL administration forgot a basic principle of sports management — sponsors and franchise owners are not adversaries; they are partners and lifelines for growth and sustainability.
The breakdown of professional communication has now pushed the league into disarray for the wrong reasons, with talk of terminating the contract of its most expensive franchise.
Let me be clear: this is not a defence of the Multan Sultans’ owner Ali Tareen. We must equally hold him accountable for the method and platform of his protest. As a PCB partner and a key financial steward of the league, he had a fundamental obligation to show restraint, control emotions and exhaust all avenues of constructive dialogue behind closed doors before resorting to public criticism.
