June 15, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 29, 1428

KARACHI, June 14: Habib Bank (HBL) on Thursday lodged a strong protest with President’s Gold Cup technical officials against Port Qasim Authority (PQA) after the latter fielded a Wapda player in Thursday’s quarter-final.

“Atif Yaqoob is Wapda’s permanent employee but representing Port Qasim Authority which is an open violation of rules. I hope we will be provided justice in the interest of hockey,” wrote HBL team manager Waheed Mirza to tournament director.

Earlier, KESC had ‘brought to notice’ that two players were their team members who should not be allowed to represent another department.

“Irfan Ali and Waseem Ahmad are members of the KESC hockey team as per contract till Dec 12, 2007 and they are regularly drawing their monthly salaries till last month. They cannot play tournament from any other department without getting No Objection Certificate from KESC,” wrote KESC team manager Noorul Abedin to tournament director.

KESC coach Mohammad Farooq said while Irfan and Waseem were representing Steel Mills without NOCs despite being KESC employees, four players — Rashid Ali, Yasir Dilawar, Shahzad Hanif and Fareed Ahmad — had resigned recently but were playing for PQA without NOCs from KESC.

While playing without legal transfer from one department to another is a violation of PHF constitution, transfer could only occur in January and July.

However, tournament director Shamsuz Zaman said he was ‘helpless’ and can’t take any action on the protests.

“I can’t do anything in this situation,” he said.

Although he claimed that PQA had playing rights and had inducted players from SSGC and NBP having the NOCs, the tournament director could neither provide the NOCs or minutes of the PHF Congress meeting, mentioning that PQA had been given playing rights.

Meanwhile, the tournament has become a farce because of violation of rules and mismanagement. The NBP-PIA match saw organisers watering the turf manually as most of the time there was no sufficient water supply. While the electronic watch was not working, announcements on a public address system to praise chief guest during the PQA-HBL game, were total violation of rules.