October 11, 2008	Saturday	Shawwal 11, 1429

LAHORE, Oct 10: The national women’s hockey team staged a protest against the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) on Friday for cancelling its tour of Sri Lanka this month in order to save funds.

Carrying placards against the PHF, the players chanted the slogan “Go Jamali go!” The decision to cancel the tour was taken by PHF President Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali on Thursday.

Meanwhile, PHF women’s wing secretary Parveen Gill said that the PHF Council had approved the tour before their participation in the Asia Cup and she was surprised at its being cancelled now.

It has been learnt that some influential people within the PHF gave the women’s wing their green signal to stage the protest in order to force Jamali to quit.

The federal sports minister along with several hockey Olympians had earlier also urged Jamali to resign from his post after Pakistan’s poor show at the Beijing Olympics in August. But Jamali is not willing to step down readily.

Earlier, the federal sports minister had inducted Asif Bajwa as secretary while replacing Khalid Mahmood without checking with Jamali. But even though Jamali had accepted the change then, he is not ready to obey any further orders from the Sports Ministry.