LAHORE: Country’s top goalkeeper Imran Butt has appealed to the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) to remove head coach Khawaja Junaid from his post since he is destroying the national game and the players by levelling baseless allegations against him.

In a short video message sent to media, Imran said: “[Head coach] Khawaja Junaid has mentally tortured me by levelling baseless allegations of conceding the goals deliberately and my association with the other countries’ federations and because of which I play a role in losing the matches for Pakistan.

“For the last six months, Junaid is mentally torturing me and I will appeal to the PHF to remove him from the coaching as he is destroying the national game and the players, too.

“I beg the PHF to remove such coach as he is the enemy of the players and the game.”

Junaid, a former Olympian, did not appear before the media to comment on Imran’s charges.

However, an official of the PHF said Imran has breached the Code of Conduct by sending the controversial video to the media and the federation would take action against the goalkeeper.

The standard of hockey, in which Pakistan once ruled the world, is on the decline.

Pakistan had failed for the first time to play the World Cup (in 2014) and then in the Rio Olympics last year as well. But such issues between the coach and the players indicate the persons responsible are not serious in making efforts to bring back the country to its rightful position in the world of hockey.

While the president of the PHF Brig (retired) Sajjad Khokhar is out of the scene for the last four months, due to illness, secretary PHF Shahbaz Ahmed Senior is also not regular at his office in the PHF headquarter in Lahore.

The PHF has also missed out two international opportunities due to its mismanagement. It turned down a FIH invitation to participate in the last Champions Trophy in place of the Netherlands and then also failed to send its national junior team in the last Junior World Cup in India after applying for the visas at the eleventh hour.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2017