Sports
Comment: Will three teams be sold? | The Express Tribune
Most franchises are staying put. The problem lies with Multan Sultan
Alhore Qalandars extend PSL partnership. PHOTO: PCB
“You were saying this ‘game‘ was fixed and no action will be taken against Multan Sultans, Ali Tareen would remain the owner, soon we’d see a picture of him and Salman Naseer exchanging bouquets, and then everyone would live happily ever after. But now the deadline is almost here, and the Sultans’ issues remain unresolved.
Ali Tareen is hinting at a legal battle — that means things are really bad.”
When I said this to a friend who closely follows the PSL, he replied, “I gave my opinion after analyzing the situation, but perhaps I was wrong. Anyway, after waiting so long, wait another couple of days — everything will become clear.”
He said that and went quiet, but the questions in my mind regarding the Pakistan Super League remain.
Multan Sultans became the most expensive franchise in the league, paying 1.08 billion rupees annually.
On the field, their performance this year was poor, but off the field, owner Ali Tareen was hitting plenty of verbal sixes and fours.
Just as players get applause from fans, he did too — but he also had to face the displeasure of PCB officials. I’ve already written about the reasons in detail earlier, but now it seems the matter is reaching an unhappy conclusion.
In a day, the deadline will expire, and we’ll know which franchises are retaining their teams and who is going for rebidding.
Peshawar Zalmi confirmed first, Lahore Qalandars have verbally agreed, Karachi Kings have heavy stakes in the league so they can’t afford to withdraw, and Islamabad United and Quetta Gladiators have found PSL to be a golden goose — they’re not going anywhere either.
So, most franchises are staying put. The problem lies with Multan Sultans. The PCB didn’t even make them an offer to retain the team. Ali Tareen recently said that his messages are being ignored. Every PCB press release uses the term “eligible franchises,” which clearly suggests that it’s time to bid farewell to the Sultans.
By now, Ali likely realizes the seriousness of the situation. He might have thought that fiery statements on social media would save him, but that was a miscalculation.
If Ramiz Raja, Zaka Ashraf, or Najam Sethi were chairman, perhaps a phone call from his father would have fixed things — but Mohsin Naqvi is different; he doesn’t tolerate such behavior.
Ali Tareen thought he was being clever by only targeting Salman Naseer in his criticism, but his statements ultimately hurt the league itself — and no head of an institution can accept that. Now, there seems to be no room left for forgiveness, which is why he’s hinting at legal action. Reportedly, efforts were also made to get other franchises on his side, but few would risk jumping onto a sinking ship.
Although it seems unlikely, if somehow reconciliation happens at the last minute, the franchise fee will increase from 1.08 billion to 1.35 billion rupees. If they had to accept that increase anyway, why start the fight in the first place?
If the dispute continues, Ali Tareen will lose ownership and won’t even be allowed to participate in the rebidding. If he tries to front someone else — an uncle, cousin, or friend — what’s the point? It’ll be a case of “spent nothing, but broke the glass and paid twelve annas.”
Now we’ll see how the drama ends — will there only be two new teams, or will three franchises be sold?
Before departing, though, Multan Sultans have put other franchises in a tough spot too. The audit firm was given financials showing a profit, while several other franchises reported losses. The question arises — if a team paying over a billion rupees annually is profitable, how are the others in loss? Franchise fees have already gone up significantly, but since new teams haven’t yet been sold, it’s better not to discuss specific figures.
What I do know is that many owners are unhappy with how things are unfolding. They’ve held multiple meetings among themselves.
Questions are being raised:
On what formula were the fees increased?
What is the new financial model for new franchises?
Meetings with the audit firm weren’t very fruitful, but for now, no one wants open confrontation. The first priority for all is to retain ownership.
Imagine someone earning 100,000 rupees a month — if that’s divided among six family members and then two more join without any increase in income, the original ones end up losing out. The same applies here: along with revising the financial model, revenue streams must increase.
These franchise owners were the ones who stepped up when no one was willing to embrace the PSL. Ali Tareen joined later, but the others — Javed Afridi, Atif Rana, Sameen Rana, Nadeem Omar, Ali Naqvi, Salman Iqbal — were loyal partners from the very beginning. They deserve respect.
If any owner causes trouble over dues, handle it according to the law. But bring in new owners who aren’t just chasing fame — ones who won’t panic after seeing the first year’s accounts. Bring in people who can take the league to new heights.
Existing franchises, too, should look for new ways to help PSL grow. Only then can the league become bigger and stronger — otherwise, ten years from now, we’ll still be standing exactly where we are today.
OXFORD, Ohio — Peter Suder scored 19 points, Antwone Woolfolk added 14 and No. 19 Miami (Ohio) closed to within a victory of a perfect regular season with a 74-72 win over Toledo on Tuesday night that extended the RedHawks’ season-opening winning streak to 30 games.
The RedHawks (17-0 Mid-American Conference) remain the only undefeated team in Division I men’s basketball. They’re only the fourth team in the past 35 years to start 30-0, joining 2013-14 Wichita State, 2014-15 Kentucky and 2020-21 Gonzaga.
With the victory, Miami claimed its first MAC regular-season title since 2004-05, extended the best start in program history and added to its school record for wins in a season. Miami also boasts the best start and longest win streak in MAC history.
Brant Byers added 13 points and Luke Skaljac chipped in 12 for the RedHawks, who extended their home winning streak to 31 games in front of a sellout crowd of 10,640 at Millett Hall. That home mark matches Duke for the longest in the nation.
Leroy Blyden Jr. led Toledo (16-4, 10-7) with 21 points and Sonny Wilson added 13.
Miami was coming off a 69-67 win over Western Kentucky on Friday night, when it needed a buzzer-beater from freshman Trey Perry. In Tuesday’s game, the RedHawks jumped out to an early double-digit lead against the Rockets and never trailed.
Toledo cut the deficit to one on four occasions and looked as though it would take the lead on an Austin Parks drive to the basket with nine minutes left, but Miami’s Eian Elmer stuffed him at the rim and hit a 3-pointer a few seconds later to push the lead back to four points.
The Rockets trailed by two points and had the ball with 13 seconds left but turned it over with less than a second to play. It was the RedHawks’ seventh game decided by three points or fewer, tied for the most to keep a perfect season alive since 1948-49.
The victory gave the RedHawks their first season sweep of Toledo since the 1996-97 season, and it ran their series winning streak to three in a row overall after losing 22 straight from 2012 to 2024.
The Associated Press and ESPN Research contributed to this report.
WOLVERHAMPTON, England — Arne Slot said Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers on Tuesday is a case of the “same old story” after his team conceded yet another late winner in the Premier League.
Wolves midfielder Andre secured the victory for the hosts with a deflected strike in the 94th minute at Molineux Stadium. It means Liverpool have now lost five games thanks to goals after the 90th minute this term; the most of any side in a single campaign in the competition’s history.
“How do I sum this up?” Slot said of his team’s ninth Premier League loss of the season. “Same old story. Recently, we are picking up points because we score many times from set-pieces, but what didn’t change in the last five, six seven games is that we struggle and find it very hard to score from open play chances that we do create.
“Not as much as I would like from all the ball possession we have, but enough and far more than the other team. But the end result is we scored one and they scored two and another one in injury time so it sums up our season again.
“We have had far more possession than the other team, we have created more in open play in general than the other team, but have struggled to score from open play. Recently we have scored a lot from set-pieces. Again we had a lot of set-pieces, but in the first half were very poorly taken.
“I don’t think we played a very good first half, the second half was better, still not great, but better. We created more, and the just before injury time we were twice very close from chances to make it 2-1.
“Mo [Salah] was dribbling and had to the left and right two players open, but the ball was intercepted by their defender and there was the Virgil [van Dijk] header, and the one we conceded wasn’t even a chance.
“That has happened to us so many times this season. That it happened in injury time may be a coincidence, although it has happened so many times. We hardly gave away a chance today, we gave away one chance and conceded two.”
Liverpool’s latest defeat leaves them in fifth place, though they could drop to sixth if Chelsea beat Aston Villa at Villa Park on Wednesday.
Reflecting on whether the loss has impacted his team’s chances of Champions League qualification, Slot said: “It’s another setback and we didn’t help ourselves with this result, not at all. But there are still nine games to play. We are coming closer and closer to the end.
“Dropping points in a game where it’s absolutely not necessary. If you look at the run of play, I’m not saying we played great, but if we play this game in this fashion 10 times we don’t lose 10 times.
“It’s far from sure that we win every time, therefore we are not good enough. If we don’t have to rely on a deflected shot, we have to play better and do better. But we’ve had enough chances to win the game.
“But credit to Wolves as well. They fight from first second until the end and got maybe a bit of a luck they deserve when you look at how much they put in throughout the whole game.”
Hansi Flick was “disappointed but proud” after Barcelona came desperately close to pulling off an incredible comeback against Atlético Madrid on Tuesday only to ultimately miss out on a place in the Copa del Rey final.
Two goals from Marc Bernal and a Raphinha penalty earned Barça a 3-0 win at Spotify Camp Nou, but they lost the tie 4-3 on aggregate after last month’s four-goal defeat in Madrid.
Atlético will now progress to April’s final in Seville, where they will meet the winners of Wednesday’s Basque derby between Real Sociedad and Athletic Club.
“We are disappointed, but we can be very proud about the performance we showed,” Flick said in the post-game news conference. “It was an amazing game from us and we created a lot of chances to score even more goals. In the end it didn’t happen and we have to accept it.”
Fermín López, Raphinha, Bernal, Ferran Torres and Lamine Yamal all had early chances as Barça flew out of the blocks, registering 13 shots on goal in the first half.
Bernal eventually gave them the lead in the 29th minute, converting a brilliant Yamal cross, and when Raphinha made it 2-0 via the spot on the stroke of halftime, the home supporters chanted “Yes we can.”
A second goal of the night from teenager Bernal set the stage for a frantic final 20 minutes, but Barça could not find a fourth, which would have taken the tie to extra-time, with their best chance blazed over by Gerard Martín in stoppage time.
“Normally this level is the benchmark, but we have to show it in every game,” Flick added. “It’s not a given, it’s hard work.”
Bernal, one of the standout performers on the night, has now scored four goals in his last five appearances and is nearing his best form again following over one year out of action with an ACL injury.
“Marc played an unbelievable game today,” Flick said. “This is the mentality I want from him because he’s a fantastic talent. With the ball, the buildup, he’s really good. Today…it was amazing, really good to see.”
Barça’s performance was tainted by injuries to Jules Koundé and Alejandro Balde. Koundé was forced off in the first half and Balde, his replacement, came off after the break.
Both will undergo tests on Thursday to determine the severity of the injuries.
“They are out,” Flick said when asked for an update on their fitness. “I don’t know [how long for]. We have to wait until tomorrow to know exactly.
“Everyone was exhausted because they left everything on the pitch. They gave more than 100%. The supporters are happy with this game, maybe also a bit disappointed, but it’s normal. Everyone played with his whole heart for this club and it’s fantastic to see.”
Copa elimination means Flick will miss out on a domestic trophy in Spain for the first time since being appointed Barcelona coach in 2024.
He won LaLiga, the Copa and the Spanish Supercopa in his debut season in charge, following up those three titles with a second Supercopa in Saudi Arabia in January.
However, Barça still have plenty to play for this season. They are four points clear at the top of LaLiga and face Newcastle United next week in the Champions League round of 16.
“It’s a long way to go in La Liga and the Champions League,” Flick said said. “We have a huge opponent coming up, Newcastle, a strong team. Every three or four days we have a match and this is our job for the next weeks, months.
“We want to play many games in the Champions League so we have to do it like this. Recovery, focus on our job and that’s what I want to see from the team. The quality we saw today from the team, it’s there, it’s unbelievable. I am really proud about my team and it’s fantastic.”
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