KARACHI, March 29: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has violated its constitution as few rebel elements who formed a parallel provincial association have neither been declared personae non gratae, nor debarred for life from the PHF activities.

Although PHF claims that it has resolved the issue after approving a list of “selected” office-bearers of Sindh Hockey Association (SHA) on Jan 26, it has failed to take action against Zafar Iqbal and Ramzan Jamali who, along with 14 others, had formed a parallel association as its president and secretary on Jan 21.

Not only the formation of a parallel body at any level should be discouraged, according to PHF constitution Article 26, the persons involved in the act should be declared personae non gratae and banned for life from PHF activities.

“Floating of parallel associations at any level shall be ruthlessly discouraged. Only one association duly constituted under its constitution in a province/district recognized by the federation, shall be the bona fide unit. Any person (s) inciting, instrumental or participating in formation of a parallel body shall be declared persona non grata and debarred for life from any activity of the federation,” article 26 says.

The very day that Ramzan formed the parallel association, the PHF-supported body “selected” Sindh Sports Minister Qamar Mansoor as its new president in place of Zafar who had resigned the post last year.

Since Ramzan believed that the body headed by Qamar was not formed under PHF supervision, it had no legal status. He had made it clear that since the association had at least five Karachi officials — a clear PHF violation, Ramzan was not willing to accept any association under a provincial sports minister.

He had also threatened the PHF of legal action if “justice” was not done. On Thursday, however, he was not available for comments.

“I agree that any person who is involved in forming a parallel association should be declared persona non grata and be debarred for life from any activity. We had to compromise on such issue to solve the matter,” the former PHF secretary Akhatarul Islam told Dawn.

The former secretary said he had no option but to approve a list of “selected” office-bearers to resolve the issue in Sindh. The game has been dogged by clashes between groups over the control of affairs in provinces which is a legacy of former secretary PHF, Brig Musarrat Ullah Khan which continued in Akhtar’s tenure.

Interestingly, the secretary of the the PHF-backed SHA, Rao Saleem says that Ramzan has now been accommodated as member of executive committee after he announced unconditional support to his group.

“Ramzan is with us now and he is very much part of the SHA recognized by PHF. He is our member of the executive committee,” said Saleem.

While Akhtar has left the mess behind by resigning on March 21, saying he doesn’t want to be a rubber-stamp to president PHF Zafarullah Jamali who is keen to run the affairs single-handedly, the ball is now in PHF chief’s court to decide on this issue.