Pakistan cricketer Saeed Ajmal accused of fraud, asked to vacate land for academy

Karachi: Pakistan off-spinner Saeed Ajmal has been accused of fraud and misuse of facilities by the administration of the University of Agriculture in his hometown Faisalabad.

The administration has ordered him to immediately vacate the land given to him to establish his cricket academy.

The varsity administration claimed yesterday that Ajmal had charged admission fees of 15,000 from one student to join the academy and over 350 students became members.

"He has not given any details of the nearly 5.3 million rupees he collected from the students, he has tried to forcibly occupy the land we gave him for the academy and he is now refusing to vacate it," an administration official claimed.

The dispute between Ajmal and the varsity administration has taken a turn for the worse since last year when he was asked by the varsity syndicate to vacate the premises and wind up his academy due to security reasons.

"I thought this matter was resolved on the intervention of the government last month and I held several meetings with the administration officials in the presence of the commissioner of Faisalabad." Ajmal told PTI.

"We had agreed amicably to settle all issues and that they would allow me to continue operating my academy which I have built with my own resources so that I could repay everything I have earned from cricket," Ajmal said.

"Now, apparently, they are making accusations against me, but I earned so much from cricket that I would never think about earning from this academy. If we did charge some nominal fees it was to cover the academy expenses including kits an equipment for its upkeep," he said.

The champion off-spinner has faced a tough time since the ICC declared his bowling action illegal in late 2014 and even after he modified it and made a comeback to the national team last April he didn't taste success and has since been out of the side.

"From the time I faced problems with my action and I went out of the Pakistan team and was no longer a certain selection the varsity citied security reasons for wanting to wind up my academy. Now they are making baseless allegations against me although when I met them I assured them the academy would be run as per their requirements and regulations," Ajmal added.