There are moments when institutions mistake ceremony for virtue and procedure for justice. They believe that if the language is polished enough and the signatures sufficiently senior, the outcome will appear inevitable rather than chosen. This is one of those moments.

Pakistani junior squash players arrived at the gates of international competition believing, quite reasonably, that rules published were rules honoured. Their entries to the 2025 US Junior Open and the 2026 Alpha Bravo Construction British Junior Open had been accepted. Plans were made. Families sacrificed. Futures were imagined in the careful, fragile way that only parents of gifted children can imagine them.

Then the gate was moved. At the centre of this affair stands the World Squash Federation, led by its Chief Executive Officer William Louis-Marie. After acceptances were issued, WSF based on some tainted information, imposed new documentation requirements on Pakistani players alone. No Egyptian juniors were asked to comply. No Americans. No English players. Only Pakistan.

This was not caution. It was distinction.

The Olympic Charter does not tolerate such distinctions. Fundamental Principle 6 promises freedom from discrimination based on national origin. That promise was broken the moment Pakistan became the only country subjected to extraordinary scrutiny.

US Squash carried the burden forward. Dr. Kim Clearkin required families to submit additional documents, authenticated in person by the Pakistan Olympic Committee, under threat of default. Parents crossed cities and provinces to comply. They did so because they believed in the system. They believed that compliance would be met with good faith.

Instead, their evidence vanished into silence. Documents were dismissed without explanation. Decisions were rendered without reasons. No appeal was offered. Rule 59 of the Olympic Charter, which demands natural justice and due process, was treated as an inconvenience rather than an obligation.

And then, with a quiet confidence that only power affords, the rules changed again. An unpublished policy appeared on December 9. It was retroactive. It relied on participation in a “2025 Pakistan Championship,” an event that does not exist in any formal sense. It was communicated through closed channels. It rewrote eligibility after the fact.

Rule 27(6) of the Olympic Charter requires legal certainty. Athletes must know the rules before they are judged by them. These children were judged by something that had not yet been written.

The effect of the policy was as revealing as its origin.

Playing up in age categories was suddenly treated as evidence of wrongdoing. In every serious sporting nation, playing up is a mark of ambition and development. Here, it became a tool of exclusion.

Mahnoor Ali played up and was removed from her rightful category. Sehrish Ali did the same and remained untouched. Same family. Same tournament. Same permissions. Different outcomes.

Harmas Ali Raja faced similar suspicion. The logic applied to his case collapsed under its own weight, at times implying an impossible chronology of birth. Yet still the decision stood.

Across the ocean, American players moved freely between age groups. Anderson Morgan did so. KayLee Li did so. Their ambition raised no eyebrows. Their documents were never doubted.

This disparity violates Fundamental Principle 4 of the Olympic Charter, which guarantees fair and equal conditions of competition. It also offends the principle of proportionality. Punishment without offense is not regulation. It is theater.

England Squash affixed its name to this process, despite earlier assurances that no nation would be targeted. The World Squash Federation allowed the performance to proceed, lending its authority while withholding its accountability.

Autonomy, under Fundamental Principle 5 of the Olympic Charter, demands good governance. What occurred instead was governance by implication and enforcement by silence.

And all of this fell upon children. Fundamental Principle 1 of the Olympic Charter speaks of human dignity. Yet dignity was eroded here, quietly and administratively, through suspicion, financial strain, and the insinuation that excellence from certain places must be explained before it can be admired.

There is a particular cruelty in teaching young athletes that fairness is conditional. That it depends not on conduct, but on origin. That rules are firm until someone powerful decides they are not.

This was not confusion. It was not error. It was choice. It was a unilateral choice, which then led the Pakistan Squash Federation to withdraw all Pakistani players from the two tournaments. A painful choice that any self-respecting national body would have made.

And long after the score sheets are forgotten, this will remain. Not as a scandal shouted, but as a truth whispered among families who learned that the illusion of fair play can be more damaging than its open absence.