THE abrupt wrap-up of the national hockey team camp, set up in Islamabad to prepare for the 2016 Olympics qualifiers, due to paucity of funds is seen as a new low for the game in Pakistan.

While the slump in Pakistan hockey has been in evidence for almost a decade now, with no major titles, except that of the Asian Games, coming our way, the extraordinary development this week has plunged the game into a deeper predicament, with the Pakistan Hockey Federation top brass admitting its failure to collect enough funds to manage the daily allowances of the players.

It is no secret that the cash-strapped PHF, for long, has been striving to keep the game afloat amid countless appeals of financial assistance made to the government. Its efforts to meet Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to apprise him of the debilitating state of the game, however, have not met with success. Hence, the embarrassing fold-up of the month-long camp at the Naseer Bunda Stadium, some 10 days ahead of the scheduled closure.

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Having said that, the government alone cannot be blamed for the shambolic state of Pakistan hockey today.

It was a year ago that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif dished out a hundred million rupees for the PHF to put its house in order. Whatever happened to that grant and who benefited from it is anybody’s guess.

In fact, the haphazard manner in which Pakistan hockey has been run over the past decade has been largely responsible for its current state of collapse.

The PHF officials have not only allowed the game to become hugely politicised during this time, they have remained too engaged in ego battles and joyrides to concentrate on the game’s development.

Unlike cricket, where players and officials are equally held responsible for a debacle — as witnessed in the recent ICC World Cup — the blame for hockey’s decline lies largely at the door of the PHF bigwigs who led the game into a blind alley owing to their absurd, short-sighted decisions.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2015

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