Interviewed by Shawn Patton
John White, another respected voice in professional squash discusses his ideas to improve the PSA and shares his perspectives on a wide range of topics. How has the Tour improved over your years in the game? Over let's say the last 15 years, I haven't seen any real change. Yes the the Tour is growing and that's great. But if we didn't have the Middle East we really wouldn't be a real circuit. Its come from people like Robert Edwards with the connections of top notch squash lovers in the Middle East putting up the money. Its not from the efforts of the PSA or players going in and doing exhibitions in new countries. Say the 4 of the top 12 players going in and doing some exhibitions to grow interest in our sport and Tour. If you put on a big tournament, this is the caliber of players you would get. We've actually never done that, WISPA does it and they get tournaments. Its either a lack of leadership or the players just sitting back on our butts doing nothing waiting for something to happen.
These large events coming up is not from the efforts of the PSA or players playing exhibitions, the organizers love squash and put on a big tournament, they have money and want to do that. But what happens in 09 or 2010 if Saudi or Kuwait don't want to continue? Where do we stand now? There's almost half a million dollars just from those two tournaments.
I've never really seen a five or a three year plan from the PSA. Either tournaments on the calendar or events they would like to add. But that's been going on now for years and years and years and has never changed.
Its almost a false economy and sense of security, the prize money increase, is it due to a number of large tournaments and one upmanship in one region of the world and our sport. Thats all it is, in North America we have a great deal of smaller tournaments, which is great, what we need, these smaller tournaments help grow the tour and help support and grow the lower ranked players to gain ranking points, they are not just going away to just try and qualify, they do that, I used to do that, but it costs a fortune, but if there were 10 or 15 tournaments where I could play and be in the main draw, I'm earning points and a little bit of money feeling like a true professional rather than just going away to try and qualify and getting nothing for it. If you look at the major tournaments John Nimick in north america, Ziad Al-Turki in Saudi, Ross Triffit and his committe in Bermuda they all love squash. Its these organizers and the associations that are running and making these tournaments happen, its not because of what we the PSA or its players have gone out and got. Its what the organizer want to put on our tour. And Hong Kong, its one of our biggest events of the year as a player, we know when its going on, the only time it wasn't on was during the SARS thing was going on. I think it is 18 years running and maybe 20-22 years on our calendar if memory serves me right.
Ideas or hopes for PSA for changes 1. Geographically designed schedule I think. Like last year what Shabana did was just unbelievable and superhuman, what did he do ... win Qatar, then Saudi after only 1 day off, then flew to Hong Kong, back to Cairo for Egyptian Nationals, then to Bermuda, then back to across to India to play in the world Teams, winning the four majors. So the geographic design would make a world of difference. You could allow 2 days off between the finals and start of next event. You're not doing a long haul flight to attend the next event, that is the part that actually kills you.
2. A new CEO that runs the Tour as a business, not just someone who comes in because they love squash and wants to travel around. We need to have a CEO who will look into the events we used to have on and go to the top players and pay them to go put on some PSA exhibitions to get these events back on our Calendar. That needs to be done ASAP. Thats what we need to do in the future, approach things from a business standpoint, not hoping the events will come to us, we need to go to them. We have a little bit of TV, the Internet, but we need to go out and show the public what we have and get more smaller (and medium tournaments) which can grow into bigger tournaments.
3. A 12 month Calendar that we can look to and play for the next 12 months, which is something we don't have. We don't even know what is happening in January or February next year. As a player the only thing I can do is go back and look at past years and guess that these tournaments are going to be on again this year.
What can the players do? Its hard for the players to go out and do a lot, some players are coaching, some are doing a lot of league over in Europe because that is how they make their money. I would like to see a few more PSA Tour Exhibitions to cities that were on the calendar, but aren't anymore. Go to countries where there used to be a circuit and go out and promote it. The players's expenses would be paid by the PSA /host country/organizers and the exhibitions would be scheduled to fit in with their schedule. Its not just about promoting ourselves, but the future of the Tour and upcoming players.
Is it true, and I don't know if this is one rule on the books, that is there but not always followed to the strict letter of the law ... that being the prohibition of paying appearance fees. Thats been tried before, that you could play tournaments non-scoring. If you have an organizer who has a new tournament, he is allowed 2 non-scorers, he could go and say, hey Shabana can you come to our tournament, and officially you are not allowed to accept appearance fee for the tournament, that's the rule.
I would actually like the rule to be taken off and allow the players 2 tournaments where they can receive appearance money to support a tournament or organizer and if it happens, it happens. I would rather see it be put out on the table. Let's say for example a top 10 player was to play a small event and was paid $5,000 appearance fee to go play a 1 or 2 star tournament in Brazil ... he got payed extra and thats great because next year that tournament has grown, benefitted and is now a 4 or 5 star event.
The players have to go out and help the tour (and the rules have to be changed to allow them). Its the only way its going to grow.
It seems like a tangible way for players to try and help the tour, above the table and give event organizers the tools to attract sponsors, media, ticket sales and general interest. exactly
What happened with the Board election. I wasn't involved, I didn't vote for anybody. Seems like the same members on the Board, with Lee Beechill however the votes were counted was added. I'm slowly getting the gist of things, but until I hear directly from the Board members, I don't think the truth will ever be told exactly what happened. Which it should be. I agree with having players on the Board, but where we have former players who are just not involved in the tour from what I see,
I believe a fully functional and effective Board whether it is at a corporate level or at a sport body such as the PSA needs to serve a number of different purposes and roles. Visibly be a reflection of your membership and have a diversity of skills and opinions. Any thoughts? The whole Board consists of squash players, except maybe Martin MacDonald, he has his own business so he probably knows the ins and out of business, but other than him, the Board consists of ex players or players still on the Tour
Many people have expressed if the PSA Board contained members with diversity of professional backgrounds, skills of accomplished business people, what happened with Gawain's contract, recent Board elections and the current "going through the motions" CEO search would not have happened and been tolerated. Exactly, never would have. If we had a proper Board, he would have never had a 13 year contract. I don't know any other CEO who has a 13 year contract.
But where does the buck stop? Isn't the Board month in and month out responsible for representing and protecting the interests of the players and the Tour? They may have complained and asked for such things as a copy of the contracts or details around the CEO or revenues derived from the rights from TV and webstreaming, but what did they do about it, what did they accomplish? Exactly. Nothing. Thats where it comes down to the Board not standing up and if half the Board has issues, isn't getting answers, they should come to the players and say, this is going on, we need to have a change or I'm going to stand down. But that doesn't happen. Regrettably, I've actually stopped going to AGMs, things are talked about for an hour and a half, and then you ask yourself just what has been decided, its like, well nothing. It happens all the time, talk, complaining, but nothing changes. Until we get a proper Board, who knows, we might have someone inside or outside of squash come in as CEO and say, we are going to have an all new vote of members, we are going to run it this way, we need to have a complete overhaul of who is on the Board.
Some people, myself included, are concerned the search process for the CEO is not being conducted in a manner that will attract the very best candate possible and may be deliberately structured to result in minimal interest to make it easier for one of the existing Board Members to assume the role in the absence of other candidates? I haven't even seen an e-mail to let me know who is applying or interested. But that is our Board unfortunately. What are they going to do this time around to make sure we have a way to remove a CEO (or Board member for that matter) if things aren't working out. I would like to know these things as soon as possible.
What do you think of the benefits of a few respected players and other stakeholders such as promoters on a selection committee to select the new CEO? And for that matter a permanent seat on the Board for Promoters, one that is rotated on a quarterly basis? Might the Board be more representative of the Tour and gain some valuable perspectives? Right now SOME of the Board members are looking out for their own interests, wanting to travel to tournaments, see how the top players are going now, getting to hang out with their friends, have Board meetings for eight hours and discuss things, but nothing happens. They get to jet set around the world and have fun. That's what its been, well that's all I have seen. Even when we have had our AGM, we've never had our whole Board there. Every year I've been, 2 or 3 of the Board are not there. Its sad, very sad. How can you expect the players to make the effort to attend, when some of the Board members don't, even knowing well in advance the date of the meeting. Lee Beechill will be good on the Board, he has some good ideas, is involved in real estate and has a business partner. But he needs the other guys on the Board to feel the same way. He, I think, wants to make some changes, but the guys that have been there for 10 years probably aren't going to want to change.
Did you ever get any details on the Webstreaming rights selection process? Never got anything, why they chose this company, what they were looking for, why they didn't get other companies to compete. Nothing. That's another grey area where I believe had we should have gone to 4 or 5 companies, give them a trial and speak to them as a business. All I know is Horizon have the contract or the rights, for 3, 4 or 5 years, I don't know. I would like to know. What rights do they have, do we have the ability to branch out or try other companies that can do the job a hell of a lot better.
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Q&A with John White - Part One
Q&A with John White - Part Two
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