LAHORE: A quintessential post-defeat situation prevails in Pakistan hockey with a committee being formed to probe the causes of the national side’s poor show in Belgium as a result of which the greenshirts have failed to qualify for the Rio Games’ hockey event for the first time.

The probe committee was formed by the Inter-Provincial Ministry on the instruction of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who happens to be the patron of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF).

While secretary sports Ejaz Chaudhary is named as the convener of the committee, ex-Olympian retired Col Mudassar Asghar, Shahbaz Senior and Khawaja Junaid are three members along with Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) director general Akhtar Nawaz Ganjera.

The reason behind fingers being pointed at the probe committee is the inclusion of former Olympians Shahbaz Senior and Khawaja Junaid, for both stinted at the PHF at a time the prime minister and other anti-PHF lobbies put blame on for hockey’s darkest hour.

Actually, Shahbaz Senior, a former Pakistan captain is also responsible for the current hockey disaster, if one goes by the claims of another ex-Olympian Rashid-ul-Hasan which he made while talking to a private TV channel. The former captain Shahbaz, according to Rashid, worked as an advisor of PHF president Akhtar Rasool Chaudhary which in turn leads to a valid belief that the federal government is yet to come up with serious overhaul intentions for the PHF.

On the other hand, Khawaja Junaid as the national team’s head coach had a long stint at the PHF during Qasim Zia’s tenure, the time period the premier has expressed strong reservations about, particularly in connection with misusing of funds.

Moreover, everyone knows that Shahbaz Senior had always had discipline issues in the side as he led the infamous revolt twice, first as captain in 1991 and then as a player during the Atlanta Olympics.

With administrative rigmarole taking toll on the national game, the country’s hockey governing body has its own share of problems mainly brought about by the government apathy which led to a shocker at the Hockey World League Semi-finals.

To start with, everyone knows that the PHF has been faced with acute financial crisis for the last two years forcing it to miss out on various important international competitions.

In this regard, the IPC submitted a summary to the prime minister almost one year back with the recommendation to sanction annual grant of Rs350 million to the PHF, to help the federation ease out its financial problems but the premier, expressing reservations over the misuse of funds released to the PHF in PPP government, asked for the audit of the PHF accounts before release of fresh funds.

The government did the audit but after a considerable delay owing to which the PHF had no other option but hanging in the balance, asking various private businessmen and others to help it.

The PHF, players and coaches, meanwhile, had been repeatedly raising voice through media for the early release of grant as the federation was not in position to pay even daily allowances to players.

The government, on the other hand, pressed ahead with its apathy towards the game of hockey, since neither did it appoint auditors well on time, nor had it any other alternative to inject funds into the cash-strapped PHF.

With the administrative gaucherie creating hurdles in releasing the required funds besides hitting hard players’ preparations, the greenshirts would have possibly not been able to feature in the last Champions Trophy held in India last year, had a private business icon not come forward to help the PHF with a grant of Rs5 million.

Despite all odds, the team carried an air of authority defeating India even at their home ground to qualify for the final of the last Champions Trophy. However, the PHF patron — the premier — not only failed to appreciate the team’s efforts but also refused at least four times to meet the national hockey heroes by cancelling scheduled meetings with PHF officials and players.

The situation was the same in the lead-up to the Hockey World League Semi-finals as the PHF had no funds to send the team for the said event while the government apathetic behavior towards the national game continued.

However, a meeting of the PSB proved a temporary watershed when many national sports federations raised their voice in favour of the national game, forcing the PSB to help the PHF financially.

However, the financial help was not enough as it could only enable the team to reach Belgium just four days before the start of the round while the PHF, as per its preparation plan, had planned to reach Belgium at least a month before.

PHF financial crisis may be severe and other impediments may be several, with the lack of serious intention to overhaul the PHF being the top, but it all boils down to the fact, as also some reports suggest, that the prime minister does not want to see Akhtar Rasool as the PHF president with both having political differences due to which the premier is not interested in releasing the funds to the current PHF set-up.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2015

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