The inevitable has happened. In what could easily be termed as the darkest hour in the country’s hockey history, the three-time former champions Pakistan for the first ever time since 1948 have failed to make it to the Olympics - the Rio Games 2016.

However, it has come as little shock to the followers of the game. The writing was very much on the wall even before Pakistan hockey team’s departure to Antwerp, Belgium, to compete in the Hockey World League Semi-final that also served as qualifiers for the Olympics.

The team was not in proper frame of mind when, instead of being duly rewarded by the government for winning back-to-back silver medals at the Incheon Asian Games and the Bhubaneswar Champions Trophy last year, the players received peanuts from the private sector and the Punjab government and that too after a yawning gap of several months.

The stunning 0-1 defeat at the hands of minnows Ireland - ranked at world No 14 - in the classification match on Friday quashed Pakistan’s hopes to make it to the next year’s Olympiad.

They were already in a tricky position two days ago after suffering a 1-2 loss at the hands of Great Britain in the knockout quarter-final. The Greenshirts needed to win its next two matches to seize the fifth spot which could have earned them a spot in the quadrennial Olympics. Alas, it was not to be.

Pakistan now play France for the 7th-8th position which is, by all counts, a sorry state of affairs.

All through this Hockey World League Semi-finals, the performance of Mohammad Imran and his men had remained quite pathetic.

They registered their solitary win win over Poland by 2-1 but suffered 6-1 defeat at the hands of the formidable Australians besides sharing points with India and France by playing two draws in the group A matches.

Prior to team’s departure for Antwerp, the eleventh hour induction of ex-Olympian Danish Kaleem as coach of the team had also raised quite a few eyebrows.

He was the coach of the Pakistan junior hockey team that finished ninth among 16 teams at the New Delhi Junior Hockey World Cup in 2013 and his sudden promotion as the senior team coach smacked of foul play. Other coaches who were associated with the team including Nasir Ali, Shafqat Malik and Sameer Hussain were abruptly shown the door.

According to information reaching here, almost all the top officials of the cash-strapped Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) including President Akhtar Rasool, secretary Rana Mujahid and Asif Bajwa had left for Belgium, perhaps to avoid the scorching heatwave lashing the country.

The fact of the matter is that the very base of the game has shrunk beyond belief as almost all of the18 academies that were set up across the country to train young hockey players now cease to exist.

Pakistan’s shameful disqualification from the Rio Olympics is the second such humiliationg moment for Pakistan hockey under the present PHF regime after Pakistan had also failed to qualify for the World Cup at The Hague last year.

Besides that, the national hockey team also failed to feature at the Commonwealth Games held at Glasgow last year due to a row between the government and the Arif Hasan-led Pakistan Olympic Association (POA).

The ignominious ouster at Antwerp now have both critics and fans up in arms as they demand a thorough inquiry into the debacle and a complete overhaul of the national game and the PHF and the culprits be severely punished by the government.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2015

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